MEDIA RELEASES

Dominican University’s Book Club will discuss Joyce Carol Oates’ Expensive People on Wednesday, February 20 at 7:00 p.m. in Lewis Lounge, located on the first floor of Lewis Hall, 7900 W. Division Street, River Forest.

A compelling study of the hidden life of America’s suburbs, Expensive People presents the journal of 18-year-old Richard Elwood, an unhappy, overweight teen who looks back at his childhood in a succession of wealthy suburbs and roams the neighborhood at night armed with a German sniper rifle.

Published in 1968, Expensive People is the second of a trilogy of novels, starting with A Garden of Earthly Delights and concluding with them. In a 1990 afterword, Oates explained that the novels “were conceived by the author as critiques of America—American culture, American values, American dreams—as well as narratives in which romantic ambitions are confronted by what must be called ‘reality.’”

“ Expensive People, Oates wrote, “was perceived as an expression of the radical discontent, the despair, the bewilderment and outrage of a generation of young and idealistic Americans confronted by an America of their elders so steeped in political hypocrisy and cynicism as to seem virtually irremediable except by the most extreme means.”

For more information about Dominican University’s Book Club, contact Mary Pat Fallon at (708) 524-6602 or at mpfallon@dom.edu.

Founded in 1901, Dominican University is a comprehensive, coeducational Catholic institution offering bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Dominican offers 50 undergraduate academic programs in the Rosary College of Arts and Sciences and 15 graduate programs through the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, the Brennan School of Business, the School of Education, the Graduate School of Social Work, and the School of Leadership and Continuing Studies. In the 2008 issue of America’s Best Colleges, U.S. News & World Report again ranked Dominican University in the top tier of Midwest master’s level universities and as a “best value” for the tenth consecutive year.