As a number of reviewers have pointed out, this novel is stylistically different from many, if not most, of the novels that Oates has written, particularly under her own name rather than a pseudonym. Its style is almost Hemingwayesque, the literary experiment with straightforward journalistic prose that many of the hardboiled novelists of the 1930s through 1950s adopted and made the baseline for subsequent crime novelists. Indeed, except for its length, this novel seems stylistically more comparable to the crime novels that Oates has published under the pseudonym Rosamund Smith. The paragraphs are generally short, the sentences are concise, and the details are relatively spare. Of course, in a literary work this style brings even more emphasis to what is stated, in particular to the…
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Citation: Kich, Martin. "Missing Mom". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 19 November 2024 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=41694, accessed 21 November 2024.]
