Falling in Love

Joyce Carol Oates, The Falls, 2004
Niagara Falls attracts tourists every year to its famous, awe-inspiring waterfalls. Some of them, like the newly-weds Ariah and Gilbert, go there on their honeymoon and hope that God will set right the discomfort they feel in each other's presence. Others just want a quick death by jumping into the Falls. From this starting point, Oates weaves a family saga into the history of the city, spanning the later half of the 20th century. There's some historical fact mixed into the fiction, mostly about the legal battle (known as the Love Canal case) surrounding the burial of chemical waste in one of the city's poorer neighbourhoods. The novel is a real page-turner in the tradition of airport classics by Sidney Sheldon and Danielle Steel, but with a lot more content, consistency and chutzpah.