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John Earle “Whitey” McClaren is an influential citizen and family patriarch in Hammond, New York. Whitey stops his car along the highway when he sees police officers mistreating a dark-skinned young man. Whitey's good samaritan instincts get him a thorough beating that ultimately brings on a stroke. Whitey's family of five grown children and his beloved wife, Jessalyn, rush to his bedside, but just as it appears he will survive his injuries and the stroke, he dies from a staph infection.

The opening passages of this novel shocked me as I am sure it did most readers. Here we are in the throes of a national tragedy of yet another black man killed by police, and JCO has already prepared a book to tell us how a family reacts to the loss of a man they loved and respected. Jessalyn's journey through grief is gruesome. She begins to fade away, tremendous weight loss and hair that suddenly turns gray. Everyone worries about Jessalyn, but she wants to be left alone.

The oldest son, Thom, sees, from the beginning, that Whitey has suffered physical attacks that do not correspond to a stroke. He takes photos of his father in the hospital, resolving to find out what happened on the highway that afternoon. Thom's obsession is to find the facts and get justice for his father.

Beverly, the oldest daughter, tries to be helpful to her mother but she is more annoying and needy, and her mother and siblings wish that she would stop crying and go back to her own life that may be in a shambles. Lorene, a young principal at a local high school, has difficulty coping but does not seek help. Sofia, a lab assistant, is lonely and trying to decide what to do with her life. Virgil, the youngest son, continues to fade in and out of the family's lives. According to Jessalyn, he is a gentle soul, and he is the only one she wants to see and have at home with her.

JOA's 800-page novel thoroughly explores grief and growing up to be decent adults. I found myself worrying about Jessalyn throughout the entire story. Her profound grief process is written with clarity and insight, as we would expect from Oates. She has written before about the loss of her husband. I felt that profound understanding of grief in this character's experience.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the ARC of this new novel.

This is a hard one to review. I feel topically, this book is about grief. Specifically how a family experiences grief with the loss of their patriarch. As someone who is has been intimate with grief since the age of 10 years old, it's a tricky subject for me to read about because I see these characters making so many mistakes or so many bad decisions because of their grief; but they don't know its their grief and it's painful to see these characters to do it because you have done it yourself. But theres so much more going on underneath that. I want to sit here and say the author such have pulled the reins back and focus more on grief than all the other problems but honestly, as chaotic as this book is, it so much represents what you go through and what happens when you lose someone very suddenly.

This is a DNF for me, even though at 800+ pages, I plowed through almost 200 pages before deciding to quit. This is essentially a family saga, with some timely events (police brutality, BLM) thrown in, almost as an after thought. The father of a large, adult family dies, because of a convoluted incident with the police. His wife and five children (spoiled, selfish, racist, misogynistic) deal with their grief. There is not one likeable character in the book. I usually like JCO’s work, but this was a fail for me.

Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. Was a book I read during my sophomore year of high school. I found the title alluring and the length challenging so I made the decision to start this book. I give credit to the author for her attention to detail, her craft, and her intellectual skill to build such realistic characters however, I must say, you must be a human of extreme patience to tolerate a book such as this one. The book follows a family prism challenged with the grief coming from the loss of the father. The book is incredibly realistic in its telling of grief and the family portrait. Although I myself didn’t find the book enjoyable due to its hearty length, I am glad that I had the opportunity to listen to a story such as this, and with that I got to learn.

Oh man, I thought this one would never end. Good thing I was listening to the audio book because if I had to read all of this I probably never would have finished. The only good part about this book is there’s so much lurid detail about each character, you can easily hate them and feel justified in doing so.

This epic book was a big investment of the first three weeks of the new year! I can’t say I clicked with any of the characters, but they definitely all seemed real. I felt like I spent some time in each family member’s brain, through the good, bad and often ugly. I’m ready for some shorter snack books after this full five course meal!

JCO has so many different writing styles that it feels like all of her books are written by different authors. This latest release is a poetic and eloquent literary journey of a family after the death of the patriarch. In the midst of the family’s individual lives, the story is timely and topical in that it tackles police brutality and corruption, and addresses racism. But the main focus is on the family, the five children and the widow as they mourn and try to move on from the death of their father at the hands of police. For the most part, the adult children are absolutely terrible people - Virgil, Sophia, and Jessalyn were the only characters I genuinely liked and found parts of myself in. The other characters are written to be hated. Beverly and Lorene and Thom each have their own struggles, but they are so unlikable. However this book is just written so well that I gave it 5 stars because of the flow of the story and the journey of each of the characters. The ending leaves a few things unanswered but it’s easy for the reader to draw their own conclusions. This is a very dense novel but it’s full of personality and life.

Now, speaking on the racism and police brutality that underlies this story. I think it’s done in a respectful way as it’s written by a white woman, and the victim of police brutality is a white man. I think JCO was writing in the way she knew how. It would’ve been different if she as a white woman was writing about a Black character who had died at the hands of police. But I think this novel still does a good job of showing the corruption and racism in law enforcement, without being inappropriate.

That being said, it’s not even the focus of the novel - the focus is the family. It feels maybe a little bit off to write a novel that starts with police brutality, and then only make that a small part of it. While I loved this book for the language and style, it just feels like it could’ve or should have been written in a different way. Racism is a theme in this novel but it’s not really what the story is about. I’m thinking of JCO’s “Because it is Bitter and Because it is My Heart,” a book that deals with race at the center of it and is largely structured around it. I’m struggling to put my thoughts coherently but I think what I’m trying to say is that this novel missed an opportunity, although it still touches on important topics.

This is the second 700+ page book of JCO that I've read in the last two years, and I can honestly say that no page is wasted. Her attention to detail (less setting and more character), the nuances of thought, and the effects of grief on individuals as well as family units, is impeccable. She uses just enough stream-of-consciousness narration to make the reader cringe but feel also feel an awkward, sometimes uncomfortable, intimacy with each character. I got to the last ten pages of the book and put it down for several hours, not wanting to finish. Now I'm left trying to find something to read that can match this work of art - the afterglow of experiencing a beautiful book. IMHO ;)