From the author of 'Blonde', 'The Falls' and 'We Were the Mulvaneys', this new novel takes in the themes of race, immigration, family and social mobility, and is Joyce Carol Oates at her storytelling best. 'The Gravedigger's Daughter' tells the tale of Rebecca Schwart, born in the late 1930s to an immigrant family from Nazi Germany, just as they are arriving to America. The family settles in a small, bleak town in upstate New York, where the only job the father can get is as the town gravedigger and caretaker of the cemetery. Soon the town's prejudice and the family's own emotional frailty results in unspeakable tragedy. In the wake of this loss, and in an attempt to put her past behind her, young Rebecca Schwart moves on, across America and through a series of listless marriages, in search of somewhere, and someone, to whom she can belong.

喬伊斯•卡羅爾•歐茨，一九三八年齣生於紐約州的工人傢庭，一九六○年畢業於锡拉丘茲大學，次年在威斯康星大學獲文學碩士學位，一九六八至一九七八年在加拿大溫索爾大學教英美文學，一九七八年以後，她搬到新澤西的普林斯頓，在普林斯頓大學教授文學創作。同時她和丈夫還經營一傢小齣版社，齣版文學雜誌《安大略評論》，直到她丈夫於二○○八年去世。

歐茨的創作力極為旺盛，以多産而聞名。自處女作短篇小說集《北門畔》（By the North Gate，1963）問世以來，迄今她已齣版一百餘部作品，包括長篇小說、短篇小說集、詩集、劇本和文學評論等。一九七○年以長篇小說代錶作《他們》（Them）獲得美國國傢圖書奬；《漆黑的水》（Black Water，1992）等三部作品獲普利策提名；《大瀑布》（The Falls，2004）獲二○○五年度法國費米納文學奬。《我們是馬爾瓦尼一傢》（We Were the Mulvaneys，1996）於二○○一年入選“奧普拉讀書俱樂部”的推薦書。她被認為是一九六○年代以來最重要的美國小說傢之一。

《掘墓人的女兒》（The Gravedigger’s Daughter）是她的第三十六部小說，入圍美國國傢圖書奬書評傢奬。