The Sacrifice (Oates novel)
The Sacrifice is a 2015 novel by the American writer Joyce Carol Oates. Set in blighted urban New Jersey in the 1980s, it follows a young Black woman, Sybilla, who is discovered in a degraded condition in an abandoned factory after going missing. When she alleges that she was kidnapped, assaulted, and left for dead by a group of white police officers, her cause is taken up by an ambitious and unscrupulous civil rights activist and his lawyer brother, despite evidence of deceit in her story. The events of the novel are based on the real-life Tawana Brawley case, and takes place in a part of New Jersey still suffering from the aftermath of post-war deindustrialization and the 1967 Newark riots. Following some of Oates's previous work, the novel explores themes of race, police violence, exploitation, and how individuals can be turned into symbols. Oates views the novel as "strongly linked" to her 1969 novel Them. It received a polarized critical reception: some reviews praised its treatment of the theme of racial inequality, while others felt it lacked nuance and empathy. Plot On October 7, 1987, in Pascayne, New Jersey, a badly beaten young Black woman is discovered in the