Read an excerpt from "Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars."

Joyce Carol Oates's latest novel, Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars., came out to critical praise yesterday.

Though the novel centers on grief and the various ways — healthy and unhealthy — it's manifested and processed, issues of race and privilege play a key role as well.

Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. opens with Whitey, an older Caucasian man, intervening in what he sees as an inappropriately rough arrest of an Indian man.

Whitey is hit with a Taser and dies of a stroke; the rest of the novel follows his widow and adult children.

Take a peek into Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars., courtesy of its publisher and author, in Literary Hub.

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