What I Lived for

The stunning, classic portrait of a powerful man’s downward spiral to moral ruinJerome “Corky” Corcoran is a money-juggling wheeler-dealer, rising politico, popular man’s man, and unscrupulous womanizer. Over the course of Memorial Day weekend in 1992, Corky’s illusions—and the life he has built for himself—are about to be shattered as he tries to keep his financial empire from unraveling, his love life from shredding, and himself from succumbing to his violent attraction to his own young stepdaughter.Originally published in 1994, What I Lived For is a portrait of a man in all his desperate, grasping weakness; his hunger, ambition, and corruption. And through this portrayal, Joyce Carol Oates—one of our most mesmerizing writers—reveals the intricate web of American society in all its tragic and flawed complexity.