Sunday, June 16, 2013

the last book I ever read (The Accursed by Joyce Carol Oates, excerpt twelve)



from The Accursed by Joyce Carol Oates:

Yet, what was the seminarian’s mortification, and shame, when he learned a few days later that the unclothed, badly beaten corpse of a young Negro female had been found in a wooded area in Cold Spring, in Hopewell Township, a quarter mile from a public house of local notoriety; knowing at once that this was Pearl and that the rust-red-haired man and his companion had very likely beaten her, and murdered her.

Yet Winslow’s terror of exposure was such, he could not force himself to step forward to speak; he could not, would not, volunteer to help in the identification of the murderers.

It was not that God failed to give Winslow Slade the clear knowledge of what he should do, but rather, God withheld from him the strength with which to do it.



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