Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Hébert, Anne (Vol. 29) - Joyce Carol Oates

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JOYCE CAROL OATES

In "Children of the Black Sabbath" [Anne Hébert] poses the timely question of whether a beautiful young girl from an impoverished rural community in Quebec can find happiness and contentment in the Sisterhood of the Precious Blood—whether she can take final vows as Sister Julie of the Trinity before her complicated, colorful past as the daughter of an alcoholic sorceress and a sado-masochistic father (in fact, the Devil himself) can cause mischief. She does not succeed.

Another dramatization of "possession." Another sequence of ostensibly inexplicable events, culminating in the actions (here thwarted) of a Grand Exorcist. One would think that Anne Hébert, or at the very least her publishers, would be hesitant about bringing out a novel that seeks to combine "The Exorcist" and "Rosemary's Baby," especially when the film "The Exorcist II" is drawing in vast hordes of people; but here it is, and there is very little to say about it. Hébert...

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1. Introduction
2. PATRICIA PURCELL [later PATRICIA SMART]
3. Samuel Moon
4. F. M. Macri
5. Anthony Raspa
6. David Walker
7. Kathy Mezei
8. Henry Cohen
9. Margot Northey
10. Kathy Mezei
11. Joyce Carol Oates
12. Paul G. Socken
13. Paula Gilbert Lewis
14. John Weightman
15. Audrey Thomas
16. Delbert W. Russell
17. Copyright

1. Joyce Carol Oates