Gravediggers Daughter - Joyce Carol Oates

It tears you apart but you cant tear your eyes off the pages. The chronicle of a girl born in New york harbor, on a ship from Germany, filled with fleeing refugees. This is as real as life, not a tale of conquests or rising against the odds, but a story of pure survival. Her father's job as a gravedigger and her mothers not so gradual decline portrayed with heartbreaking clarity. She grows up, becomes a wife - albeit a battered one, a mother and then a fugitive,. hiding from her past and herself. It even got me thinking (a rare occurance, i assure you) if she had been given the gift of her history, the story of what she could be if she wasn't the grave diggers daughter, an understanding of her past, she would have got the dignity to face life a little better. But then that is the beauty of this book, it shows human frailties without apology.