This novel's major plotline is probably the most taboo story I've ever read. I think the manner in which Joyce Carol Oates' writes the characters, displaying and describing their feelings, but not entirely judging them (with some authors it's obvious they like this character, they don't like this one - not with Oates), made me perfectly uncomfortable, and also embroiled in their decisions. I can't stop thinking about this novel, and the characters, and the era it takes place (1950s). The descriptions are amazing, and I could almost see it play out in my head as I read it. I'm still wondering how Enid Maria continued after the book's end. I wonder how the rest of her life played out. All of the Stevick's lives.