Best-selling author Joyce Carol Oates blends sexual violence, racism, brutality, and power in her latest incendiary novel. When a fourteen-year-old girl is the alleged victim of a terrible act of racial violence, the incident shocks and galvanises her community, exacerbating the racial tension that has been simmering in this New Jersey town for decades. Unfolding in a chorus of multiracial voices ??? from the police to the media to the victim and her family ??? which gather to reach a tense crescendo at the novel???s climax, THE SACRIFICE offers a shocking new understanding of power and oppression, innocence and guilt, truth and sensationalism, justice and retribution ??? and the primal decisions we make to protect those we love. A chilling exploration of complex social, political, and moral themes, THE SACRIFICE is a major work of fiction from one of our most revered literary masters.