The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates, edited by Greg Johnson, offers a rare first glimpse into the private thoughts of this extraordinary writer. Far more than just a daily account of a writer’s writing life, these intimate, unrevised pages candidly explore Oates’s friendship with other writers, including John Updike, Donald Barthelme, Susan Sontag, Gail Godwin, and Philip Roth, among others. Oates also describes, in vivid and captivating detail, her university teaching, her love of the natural world, her rural background, her vast reading, her critics, her travels, and, predominantly, the silent, secret life of the imagination. What emerges is a fascinating portrait of the artist as a young woman, fully engaged with her world and her culture.