Them (Modern Library) by Joyce Carol Oates

Wonderland Quartet #3

by Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates' Wonderland Quartet comprises four remarkable novels that explore social class in America and the inner lives of young Americans. As powerful and relevant today as it on its initial publication, them chronicles the tumultuous lives of a family living on the edge of ruin in the Detroit slums, from the 1930s to the 1967 race riots. Praised by The Nation for her "potent, life-gripping imagination," Oates traces the aspirations and struggles of Loretta Wendall, a dreamy young mother who is filled with regret by the age of sixteen, and the subsequent destinies of her children, Maureen and Jules, who must fight to survive in a world of violence and danger. Winner of the National Book Award, them is an enthralling novel about love, class, race, and the inhumanity of urban life. It is, raves The New York Times, "a superbly accomplished vision." Them is the third novel in the Wonderland Quartet. The books that complete this acclaimed series, A Garden of Earthly Delights, Expensive People, and Wonderland, are also available from the Modern Library.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Novels, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Literature, American

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Joyce Carol Oates is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. Her novels Black Water (1992), What I Lived For (1994), and Blonde (2000), and her short story collections The Wheel of Love (1970) and Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories (2014) were each finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel Them (1969), two O. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal, and the Jerusalem Prize (2019).
Oates taught at Princeton University from 1978 to 2014, and is the Roger S. Berlind '52 Professor Emerita in the Humanities with the Program in Creative Writing. From 2016 to 2020, she was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where she taught short fiction in the spring semesters. She now teaches at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.
Oates was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2016.
Pseudonyms: Rosamond Smith and Lauren Kelly.

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a stranger in the World According to Joyce Carol Oates, I established one essential fact in reading them: The woman is indeed a superb writer. From page one, this novel (published when Oates was 31), pulls you in with its confident rhythms, sharp dialogue, and natural storytelling ease. It's the sordid and surreal chronicle of a "white trash" family in Detroit, spanning the years 1937 to 1967. Loretta Wendall is the family's crude, optimistic matriarch; her children Maureen and Jules struggle to fashion lives for themselves, against the odds, in a rapidly changing America.

them is not a for readers seeking warm, sympathetic characters or spiritual uplift; it's quite an ugly book, though a fascinating and compelling one. You never exactly care for Loretta, Maureen, or Jules, but you sure want to see what happens to them.

And oh the things that happen. In the first 60 pages Loretta loses her virginity, wakes up to find her boyfriend shot by her brother, and marries a policeman who helps cover up the crime. There are plane crashes, fires, prostitution, rapes, throat-slittings, mental breakdowns, shootings, and, in a bravura set-piece finale, the ’67 Detroit race riots. It's a catalogue of modern Gothic horrors that grows increasingly bizarre as the story progresses.

Not all of it works. A sequence where Jules drives to Texas with Nadine, an upper-middle-class teenager from the suburb of Grosse Pointe, bogs down in the psychodynamics of their twisted relationship. The portrait of ’60s campus revolutionaries feels like social parody long past its expiry date. But Oates taps into so many highly charged currents—the violence of American life, the powerlessness of women in society, the inevitable disillusionments of growing up—that the reader can never quite write them off as just a crackpot soap opera. The book is disturbing, and it's unforgettable.

[Paul Bryant · Rating 2 out of 5]

Around page 260, I stopped wanting to find out what happened to this miserable crew. I didn't mind if they all ended up going to Woodstock and scoring bad acid and drowning in one of those photogenic mudbaths. In fact - yay, way to go. It had been something of a struggle to bother about these people to begin with.
The novel is based on the life of the Maureen character.
Maureen was a real person. JCO met her round about 1962, she was a student in JCO's evening class at the University of Detroit. JCO discovered Maureen's "terrible obsession with her personal history" and JCO became fascinated herself and had a lightbulb-over-head moment and wrote the whole thing out in her greatly detailed patented helter-skelter deadpan and then and then and then style. So it's a non-fiction novel, or whatever these things are called. The trouble is that many of the extraordinary twists which happen to the three main characters Loretta and her children Jules and Maureen are unexplained, maybe inexplicable. They zap right on like a drive by shooting. JCO is a drive by writer. For instance Maureen at age 16, having had NO boyfriends and ZERO sexual experience, becomes a kind of hooker for a while, accepting lifts from guys and sleeping with them for money in motels. Huh? So, er, why did she do it? Did she think of the first guy as a boyfriend? Seems that her entire motivation was to get money to enable her to leave an oppressive family household where she was treated like a skivvy. Would a girl in 1954 really do this? Out of the blue start sleeping with guys for money, and all her own idea? It didn't seem real at all, but of course the point of "them" the novel is that it's not actually fiction, it's all entirely true. The truth is stranger than fiction, JCO may say, but I think it is incumbent on JCO to offer SOME interpretation instead of just kind of shrugging and moving on breathlessly to the next weird thing.
Anyway after 260 pages I couldn't take any more of this endless stream of banality invigorated by the odd jolt of unexplained violence. This was an early JCO - much much much better was to come.

[Dagio_maya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pubblicato nel 1969, Loro, nel 1973 uscì in Italia col titolo di “Quelli”.
Si tratta del terzo romanzo dell'epopea americana.

” (..) perché che cos’è la vita, nella sua essenza, se non un’avventura epica? scrive l’autrice stessa nella postfazione.

I quattro volumi di questo ciclo di romanzi sono slegati tra loro, non hanno in comune né personaggi né contesti ambientali e quindi possono essere letti in modo indipendente.
Ciò che li unisce è piuttosto l’intenzione di dare spazio e voce a storie di famiglie comuni che nel corso del tempo compiono scelte ed affrontano i casi della vita rendendo speciali le loro esistenze.
E’ come se vivendo il quotidiano non ci si accorgesse di quanto possa essere speciale ognuno di noi.

In Loro, oltre al microcosmo familiare, è centrale l’aspetto sociale che il titolo stesso contiene.
"Loro", è il pronome personale che crea barriere; unisce e al tempo stesso esclude “gli altri” che sono da un lato coloro che appartengono ad una borghesia abbiente, dall’altro gli altri poveri con cui si lotta ogni giorno e che si distinguono per razza e nazionalità differenti.
“Amore e denaro” questo avrebbe dovuto essere il titolo in origine.

Partendo dalla fine degli anni ’30 alla fine degli anni ’60, il romanzo racconta la storia della famiglia Wendall.
Si comincia con Loretta che non è ancora madre ma una ragazzina come tante.
L’avvio è incalzante: nel giro di due capitoli si ritroverà accanto ad un cadavere, sarà stuprata e si ritroverà incinta e sposata col suo stesso aguzzino!.

Dopo una serie di traslochi Loretta approda nella turbolenta Detroit:
centro economico per la presenza della casa automobilistica Ford e, allo stesso tempo, polveriera del disagio sociale che scoppierà nei disordini del 1967.
Da Loretta sempre pronta a rialzarsi dopo ogni fallimento ai quattro figli di cui sono particolarmente due ad avere i riflettori puntati: Jules e Maureen ed è proprio quest’ultima a scrivere una lettera alla stessa Joyce Carol Oates ricordandole di essere stata sua allieva ai corsi serali e condividendo il suo dramma.

E una linea sottile che divide realtà e immaginazione ed attraversa tutta il romanzo;
si attorciglia tra le pagine mimetizzandosi e basta fare un passo per essere da una o l'altra parte.

Così l’autrice racconta in una nota introduttiva affermando da subito che:

”Questa è un’opera storica in forma narrativa… ovvero in una prospettiva personale, che è poi il solo tipo di storia possibile.”

La letteratura prende in prestito dalla realtà e chi scrive restituisce una storia reinterpretata.

Così i Wendall sono una riscrittura di una tipica famiglia americana dei sobborghi metropolitani. Sono bambini intrappolati in corpi adulti costretti a recitare copioni scritti da altri.
Il ruolo delle donne che già conosciamo così come quello degli uomini destinati a perdersi nei fumi del l’alcool.
Covano la rabbia degli eterni perdenti sfogandola con un inutile razzismo e conducono una vita tra il sonno e la veglia.

Una storia dove si nota tanto l’assenza quanto l’ingombrante presenza di portafogli gonfi di soldi o banconote nascoste in un libro di poesia che nessuno leggerà.
Denaro che appare e scompare ma non conduce da nessuna parte.

La vera differenza è tra chi, come Loretta, reagisce e si rialza e chi come Maureen, soccombe per poi mimetizzarsi...

Un bel romanzo che, nonostante sia corposo per quantità di pagine ed anche per contenuti, ho letto con facilità.

"Quando si soffre come ho sofferto io, non si impara niente dalla sofferenza, la sofferenza non ti insegna niente, né fa di te una persona migliore, ti stronca semplicemente…"

[emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

I honestly don't get it.

This is a book in which every character, all the time, is confused. At first, I thought maybe Ms Oates was not quite so sympathetic an observer as she thinks she is and that she may just think that her poor characters are poor because they're dumb. But no! The non-poor characters are just as befuddled. I have no idea how they get through their days. These people are constantly surrounded by a world that mystifies them, and they seem unable to remember things like where they were earlier in the day, who they are talking to, or (hilariously) how to park a car (as we see Jules "manage" to park a car a dozen or more times, each time referred to with the verb "manage"). I have no idea how they get through the day. Can they remember to brush their teeth? Do they remember that they HAVE teeth?

This is the kind of book that has passages (my own, invented) like this: "She heard him saying something to her and strained to listen, listening through the hazy shapes she saw surrounding him. 'What were you doing today,' he was asking. 'I don't remember,' she said, dully. 'I don't remember anything.'"

If only a single damn character could remember anything he'd been doing the day before, or could just muster up the energy to grab a strong cup of coffee or a decent nap, we could have cut the whole book down to a short story.

[Cody | CodysBookshelf · Rating 5 out of 5]

A searing and complicated look at the (de?)evolution of a family stricken by poverty and the loveless underbelly of the American Dream, them earned Joyce Carol Oates the National Book Award in 1970, and rightfully so. Readers expecting easily likable characters and neat resolutions need not apply — this is a big novel with something worthwhile to say.

JCO herself says this is one of the books she feels she will be remembered for having written. This challenging, and honest, look at the lower class dealing with woes of all sorts, is worth the hype. A masterpiece.

[Kansas · Rating 5 out of 5]

https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2025...

"He was to recall his childhood in flickers and flashes, as if it were a movie made before his time, one of those old halting, comic films in which foolishly dressed people could have felt no pain, no anguish. Had he, Jules Wendall, ever been a child? Really a child? In the sense in which other people have been children? And what did it mean, to have been a child?"


Cuenta Joyce Carol Oates que como cronista de la sociedad americana la han criticado muchas veces por no establecerse en juez de sus personajes, ni sobreexplicar los mensajes de sus historias o dejar los finales completamente abiertos. Se puede decir que la vida misma es asi, no? No hay cierre, hay un continuo evolucionar, sobrevivir, un ir hacia adelante, así que de alguna forma la Oates está haciendo esto. Es cierto que muchas veces parece que todo se quede en el aire pero normalmente eso viene de nuestra necesidad de que las historias concluyan, que todo quede atado y bien atado. Con la Oates no suele ocurrir esto, y si hemos prestado atención a las pequeñas señales, todo queda atado, solo que será el lector el que lo tiene que dejar atado en su imaginación. También dice ella que sumergirse en las vidas de otros, habitarlas, es un acto de compasión e incluso de amor y cuando se ama (como ella ama/habita sus personajes) el juzgarlos no tiene cabida. "Los significados de una novela pueden ser tantos y tan innumerables e insondables como sus lectores". Expondrá a sus personajes, los desnudará, los enfrentará a dilemas, pero las respuestas complejas e incluso trágicas, quedarán para que el lector las desentrañe. Y en esta tercera entrega del Cuarteto Wonderland, una vez más, la Oates enfrenta a sus personajes a la realidad después de que las ambiciones románticas e idealizadas que tuvieran estos jóvenes americanos se encontraran cara a cara con la vida real. Ya el título, them está sentando la base de adónde se quiere dirigir esta autora, porque este ellos/them son los americanos que viven al margen del sueño americano: pobres, que vienen de la Depresión, sin poder y sin voz.


"And then, when younger people began getting jobs again, back from governement projects and optimistic from the governement checks that became as regular and permanent as the cycle of the seasons itself, her father had gone back to building. But the times weren’t quite right yet and so he waited a few years, and the times never got quite right for him. He was terrified and couldn’t make sense of this terror, so he started drinking."


Quizás uno de los puntos que más me conmueven en la escritura de la Oates, y particularmente en esta novela, es cómo consigue transmitir la vulnerabilidad y la fragilidad de sus personajes. No los idealiza, nos está enfrentando tanto a sus virtudes como sus defectos, y sin embargo, hay una enorme compasión por ellos y esto es algo que captará su lector, o por lo menos, a mi me lo consigue transmitir como pocos autores, a flor de piel, imagino que será que porque ella misma entra en una especie de de trance cuando los habita, los sueña, tal como también expone aquí: "Their lives pressed upon mine eerily., so that I began to dream about them instead of about myself, dreaming and redreaming their lives. Because their world was so remote from me it entered me with tremendous power, and in a sense the novel wrote itself." Para la clase que domina serán them/ellos, e incluso los mismos personajes se refieren en algún momento a ellos mismos como them, distanciándose de ellos mismos, siendo conscientes de esta separación. No se ven a si mismos como us/nosotros, y es algo muy palpable durante toda la novela, estableciendo esta falta de unidad, porque la unidad familiar también de alguna forma está desestructurada, tal como la clase social de la que provienen. Joyce Carol Oates usó este them en minúscula, conscientemente, como una reafirmación de esta deshumanización y de la lucha de clases. Durante la década de los 60 era prácticamente imposible que un autor se dedicara a abordar a esta clase social, blancos pobres, separados por distinciones raciales, eran invisibles, prácticamente inexistentes en la literatura americana. La Oates lo hizo.


"Walking with her into the other room, he had a kind of hallucination, a flash of a blown-up photograph of himself. He sometimes thought ironically of himself as being photographed, in the act of running. Now the flash came to him, came and went."


them transcurre entre 1930 con las consecuencias de la Depresión y 1969 con los disturbios raciales de Detroit de 1969 y aquí vuelve la autora a enfrentar a sus personajes, la familia Wendall, a temas ya habituales en su narrativa: la lucha por la identidad personal, la supervivencia en una América en la que el desafio por combatir la pobreza estaba precisamente en el ideal del sueño americano, subir una clase social y dejar atrás la de los blancos desfavorecidos que vivían en los extraradios. Los Wendall pertenecen precisamente a esta parte de América silenciada, invisible, la clase trabajadora que vivía en unas condiciones socioeconómicas en la que necesitaban la ayuda de los servicios sociales. En them se retrata sobre todo la década de los 60 pero no desde el punto de vista de las protestas, las marchas, la política o la adicción a las drogas, que era lo habitual en los autores de la época al abordar esta década sino que la Oates la aborda desde el interior de una familia en la que el entorno social no es el protagonista sino que está de fondo siempre presente influyendo en las decisiones y sin embargo, seremos testigos de ello a través de sus personajes principales: Loretta, la madre, y dos de sus hijos, Maureen y Jules.


"That was the end of her youth. She tried no to think of it again."


Esta sea quizás una de las novelas más crudas, más realistas de la Oates y durante sus 500 páginas no deja de metamorfosearse y cambiar de registro, al principio parece una cosa y va mimetizándose en otra y en otra novela continuamente. El comienzo de novela es absolutamente arrollador y crudísimo y ya la Oates no se cortaba un pelo a la hora de presentar ciertas situaciones. En este caso, pareciera que toda la novela fuera a girar en torno a Loretta Wendall, una chica de dieciséis años en un momento de inflexión en su vida, un momento que decidirá el resto de ella y marcará el futuro que tendrá a partir de entones. Estos cuatro primeros capítulos en los que conoceremos a una Loretta, más que enamorada de un chico, enamorada del amor, y que de la noche a la mañana se encuentra corriendo de madrugada por las calles aterrada, no sabremos si huyendo de alguien o huyendo de ella misma, es un momento totalmente antológico ya en la narrativa de esta autora: “In her yellow cotton-flowered dress she ran, running across the cool coblestones in her bare feet, panting like a cow.” A partir de aquí la Oates elíptica, convierte la novela en la historia de los dos hijos de Loretta, el mayor Jules, y Marianne.


"It drives me crazy the way I always have to move from one place to another. You remember out in the country? Then we came to Detroit? Then all them dumps, them bus rides? I can"t stand always moving around! I want my own place, my own house. I want to be like somebody in a movie, I want to get dressed up and walk down the street and know something important will happen..."


Se puede decir que en esta novela aunque sea la historia de una familia, los Wendall y de todo el devenir para escapar de la pobreza convirtiendo Detroit en su hogar, realmente tengo la impresión de que la novela solo se centra en tres personajes, para mí capitales, y estos serán el triangulo formado por Loretta y Maureen y Jules. A través de estos tres personajes, JCO explorará la América más profunda y de lo que condiciona haber nacido en una familia determinada con unas condiciones ecónomicas y sociales ínfimas para la supervivencia. "A girl going through the worst experience of her life. They glanced at her and glanced away. It seemed to Maureen that her life was coming undone. The world was opening up to trap her, she was losing her mind, she was coming undone, unfastened." Tanto Jules como Marianne, magnificamente retratados por la autora, lucharán cada uno a su manera para escapar de las tinieblas que parecen apoderarse de ellos en forma de familia desestructurada en su día a día. Por una parte, Maureen Wendall simbolizará la búsqueda desesperada de seguridad tanto emocional como económica; ha crecido en un mundo caotico en el que la única forma de subsistir es a través de los hombres, y a través de ella, la Oates construye un personaje femenino que tras sufrir la violencia masculina y entrar en una especie de estado catatónico, intentará salir de estas tinieblas cortando no solo con esta estructura familiar sino con la clase social a la que ve como una maldición. Si Maureen es la pasividad y ve en el aislamiento una seguridad, para Jules será justo lo contrario porque él querrá escapar de las limitaciones de su clase y de su familia, saliendo al mundo, sin embargo es evidente que será incapaz de cortar el lazo total con la familia. La rabia y la alienación que él siente, por pertenecer a una clase que le cierra todas las puertas, lo harán involucrarse en conflictos. A diferencia de Maureen, para él los lazos familiares todavía tienen un significado, aunque hay que decir que en Maureen está retratando JCO una mujer que sufre violencia sexual y abuso solo por el hecho de ser mujer. Se puede decir por tanto que Jules incluso en su momento más frágil y débil, siempre tendrá más facilidades y salidas que su hermana Maureen.


"Sometimes his father banged out the back door, sometimes he slapped Loretta's face, sometimes he slapped someone else's face, sometimes he broke a chair or a plate, It hardly mattered. Julen was too old to run away. It was shameful to be always running away. Running away was a mistake. He was too old now to run away but too young to move out."


Puede que sí, que esta sea la mejor novela de la Oates, la novela que mejor la defina por todos los temas que retrata y que desarrollará en posteriores novelas, y porque sus personajes son tratados desde una introspección tan trágica como épica:

- Por una parte, Loretta, la madre atrapada desde los dieciséis años en una vida que no eligió:


"Maureen can hear her, from bed, her mother weeping out in the other room.
What about my life?, Loretta says. When its going to begin?"


- Maureen Wendall, a la que en un principio la espera el mismo destino que su madre, y que sin embargo, luchará con uñas y dientes para escapar, como pueda, de un entorno que intenta sentenciar su futuro por el hecho de ser mujer, casi sin esperanza. Maureen será una niña y una adolescente observadora y perfectamente consciente de sí misma, y los momentos en los que la Oates penetra en su mente son absolutamente arrolladores:


"Sometimes when she was alone, walking along the street, she was taken by surprise seeing her refllection in a store window, a remote, ghostly refllection she never quite expected or recognized; It did not really seem herself."


- Y a través de Jules Wendall, la Oates retratará la vida en las calles, la necesidad de huida continua y al igual que su hermana, por muchas buenas intenciones que pueda tener para su futuro, el entorno en el que ha nacido lo condicionará continuamente aunque su mirada sea mucho más fragmentada, más frágil que la de su hermana Maureen.


"But I think, what the hell, everybody is alone. That's the secret, everybody is alone and can't help It, like right here and now, in this place, everybody is alone and they'd all get up and walk out if they could and never see each other again. We're all like that.”


Hay que decir también que en las cuatro novelas del Cuarteto Wonderland, la Oates usa también narradores masculinos, y en them no solo tendremos la perspectiva de Jules sino la de otro hombre, un padre de familia con tres hijos a punto de tirar la vida familiar por la ventana. Pocas veces he podido leer un retrato de un hombre a punto de serle infiel a su mujer y que resulte tan realista, tan conmovedor. La Oates no lo juzga, todo lo contrario, nos lo presentará y a partir de aquí, el lector se hará cargo...


"He had settled himself into a certain life, to place himself in a certain relationship to his own family and to her family. He had wanted to come to the end of uncertainty. He had wanted an end to the confusion of emotions that had made his adolescence miserable, and frightened him to think that at 34, he had really settled nothing. He could no control his emotions. They broke and flooded..."

"He was perpetually waiting for something to happen, anxious that It might happen and that it might not happen. He had no idea what It could be. He had begun waiting for it early in life. It was connected vaguely with the mystery of dreams, those disturbing dreams that seemed to belong to another man but had to be his own."


Joyce Carol Oates nos presenta una novela que transcurre a lo largo de tres décadas y sin embargo no funciona como una novela tipica tópica, todo lo contrario. Coloca a sus personajes en determinados momentos de su vida y se explaya, alarga escenas concretas hasta casi el infinito, para poco después montar una elipsis en la que pueden haber pasado fácilmente diez años, así que se puede decir que la novela está construida sobre unos pocos momentos en la vida de los tres personajes principales, cada uno de ellos una figura esencial que llegará a representar una nación que vendió el sueño americano y que sin embargo ya se encarga la autora, sin edulcorar nada, cruda y realista, en narrarnos esa otra parte invisible, la más desfavorecida. Them es una novela publicada en 1969 y aunque JCO esté narrando una época, un país y unos personajes que parecen muy lejanos del mío, la leo en 2025 y reconozco a los personajes:  conozco alguna Maureen, algún Jules y alguna Loretta. Todo es tan universal, vigente y humano en la Oates!!!  Quizás la maestría de esta autora esté también en el hecho de que al mismo tiempo nos esté hablando del papel de la mujer en la creación artística, la lucha por parir historias aunque el papel marcado para la mujer desde siempre sea la de parir hijos. Aquí la Oates se mete de lleno en la metaficción y llegado un punto no sabremos realmente qué es realidad y qué ficción. Una obra monumental.

"Dear Miss Oates,
Years ago I was a student of yours, you don't remember me. I am writing this letter knowing you don't remember me."

♫♫♫ The Rip - Portishead ♫♫♫

[Ron Grunberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

What can you say about JCO? The most prolific great novelist of our times. She's written probably over a hundred books, all illustrating her depth and wisdom as a writer. She's taken modern icons and major headlines, from the life of Marilyn Monroe and Ted Kennedy to the race riots of the sixties, but mainly she's gone behind the scenes of peoples' private lives, to illustrate through literally hundreds of short stories and dozens of novels her breadth and scope of knowledge and attention to the most important issues, public and private, of our times.


This book stands out among the many I've read. It's a personal mystery, also a public drama, in that the story takes place around Detroit in the late sixties, where it happened Miss Oates was a teacher of literature at a night school.

I've read her books including this one a while back, so I can't recall the plot details, but I remember being quite stoked while reading it, for the personal drama between a wife and the husband with whom she was unfaithful...and of the portrait inside the mind of a crazy man with a gun...

In any event, she writes fluidly. You might think, with her astounding number of publications, some under pseudonyms (she also writes mysteries and books for young adults and children!)that her attention might flag, that she might get sloppy.

No, never. Amazing attention. A greatly trained mind. A pleasure to sit with her...

[Kimber · Rating 5 out of 5]

For a woman who only lived in Detroit for a few years, it's breathtaking how well she evokes this city. Everything feels real to me--and that's saying a lot since these characters are so hard to believe, extremely dysfunctional, sociopaths, even crazy. Oates is able to get into their skin, totally feeling every terrible thought and terrible deed. Yes, it's startlingly violent and as implausible as the characters seem they are true to their actions. Oates never flinches, she never explains or judges them. As she says there are myriad ways of interpreting a story and each reader takes with them what they may.

On the first reading, I was riveted by her authenticity and violence but also shocked by it.

On the second reading, I appreciated more of the characters and who they were and who they were was so intertwined with the world they came from. Oates allows them to be as they are without setting about to reform them, or impose a moral framework on this story. Despite its darkness and its bleakness and its crazyness, I discovered on this reading that when the shock wears off you can see tiny shafts of light in this dark portrait Oates has painted. It came to me as a tragic story illuminated.

[ALLEN · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whenever readers complain (based on what they've heard, or whatever) that the novels of Joyce Carol Oates are too non-realistic or stylized, I immediately recommend THEM to them. This starkly realistic, almost naturalistic early novel (1969) is set in working-class Detroit from the depression to the race riots of 1967. I've read it twice (third read coming up) and am always impressed by the power of the narrative and the sympathy I feel for the book's heroine. Originally, the book's title was printed in all-lowercase to demonstrate the disdainful attitude the middle class took toward "those people," the "them" that had to struggle all the way.

THEM, by the way, is third in Oates's so-called "Wonderland Quartet," the other books being A GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS, EXPENSIVE PEOPLE, and WONDERLAND.

[N · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite possibly, one of Ms. Oates' bleakest and most harrowing meditation on the struggles of poor white people during the Great Depression heading towards the Detroit Race Riots of the late 1960s. I think in terms of her ever growing oeuvre, this is the greatest and most fully realized novel she’s written for me. There are many more years to come with more Oates as long as she’s still alive.!

At the heart of this bleak book are three unforgettable characters of the Wendall family: Loretta, and her children Jules and Maureen.

The three live hand to mouth, constantly finding themselves face to face with violence, weak-willed and physically abusive men (their father Howard, wannabe gangster Bernard, stepfather Furlong).

We begin the focus on Loretta, the violent death of her lover Bernie; the possibility of Bernie being the father of her son, Jules; and her almost chronic dependence on men and violently receiving and rejecting her kids with a push/pull love that will make you cringe.

She eventually marries Furlong who winds up beating Maureen almost to death, after he discovers her venture in to being a prostitute; through the discovery of her third daughter, Betty who disappears later in the novel.

Jules is her resourceful, dreamy son finds himself having affairs with three very distinct women. First there is Faye, the socialite gangster's moll; then Bernard's niece, the willowy Nadine.

Traveling from Detroit to Beaumont, Texas; Nadine abandons Jules after a violent bout of the flu. Co-dependent with each other through incessant sex, and romantic yearnings, their relationship comes into a violent end where Nadine attempts to murder him back in Detroit, and she is committed to a mental hospital.

Jules finally transforms as one of the men who abused him: he becomes a pimp where he abuses the innocent and childlike Vera.

Maureen, after almost having died from the bludgeoning of her stepfather Furlong, has an affair with a married professor, and wishes to become a housewife.

She takes out her frustrations on life by trying to become first a prostitute, then later attends to school where she is abused emotionally by her cold and distant teacher, Joyce Carol Oates herself, in a postmodern twist.

them is a lurid, violent, pulpy, reckless and compulsively readable novel.

It's a true example of art and trash combined into one nasty book with scenes of rape, violence against women, and racism that will show up again and again in much of Joyce Carol Oates' work.

[Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joyce Carol Oates (born in 1938) is a very prolific writer who began her career early and has not stopped since. She has written over 50 novels, hundreds of short stories, as well as plays, poetry, and non-fiction. Her first novel was published in 1964 when Oates was 26 years old. Them was published in 1969 when Oates was only 31 and won The National Book Award. "Many years and many awards later, Oates surmised that Them and Blonde (2000) were the works she will most be remembered for, and would most want a new reader to select, though she added that "I could as easily have chosen a number of titles.""

Them tells the story of a down-on-their-luck family who wind up living in Detroit during the period 1937-1967. The novel focuses on three characters, Loretta Wendall, her son Jules, and daughter Maureen. This "white trash" family is living in Detroit trying to scrape by through marriage and obtaining money by any means. These are definitely not sympathetic characters and live basically a life of misery and longing. Both Loretta and Maureen at different points in their lives turn to prostitution while Jules uses violence to try to get ahead in life. In addition to prostitution the novel includes rape, shootings, throat-cutting, a plane crash, fires, and mental breakdowns with an undertone of racism throughout. This all leads up to the 1967 race riots in Detroit where Jules plays a definite role.

This is not a feel-good story but Oates's writing is superb and she really makes you want to read on to see what happens to these characters. It's hard to believe that she was only 31 when this book was published and had enough life experience to be able to tell this story. I have read several other novels and short story collections of Oates and consider her one of the best at what she does. I also have several books of hers on my TBR shelves that I definitely need to get to sometime soon.

[Nic · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was a relief to reach the end of this based-in-fact novel of Detroit poverty and violence. Them spans two generations of a family who longs for better things, but can't make a more peaceful, healthy, affluent life happen. Oates starts with Loretta as an optimistic teen stuck caring for her alcoholic father and older brother, working at a dry cleaners. She really breaks your heart by getting you to feel her young character's yearning for a better life, then showing how they get sucked into prostitution, pimping, drug use, abusive relationships, and have no mentors to show them how to break free of this cycle. Actually, one character is able to eventually "rise above" but it's a hollow victory that demands she completely detach from her family and her deny past. What kept me engaged through this tough story was Oates' elegant writing. She changes point of view, deftly moves through time in a way that surprises the reader, and draws you into a dreamy state of her character's consciousness. I understand why she is such an admired writer, but hope the next novel of hers I choose isn't so depressing.

[Jim Angstadt · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the second book by Joyce Carol Oates that I have read. Both were DNF.

Early in this book, there were two well-developed characters, a brother and sister, who were having a discussion in their kitchen. The more I read, the more I disliked both characters, especially the brother. I was impressed by the vividness of the characters, but, like an annoying person in real life, I wanted no more interaction with them.

[Mickey · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of those books that literally changed the way I saw the world, at least for a little while, maybe longer (and I mean literally - I looked at everything differently with my eyeballs, with different care and intent). After I put it down, I had to pick up a friend at the bus depot. We were using the bus because we were poor college students, but our lives were going to be pretty good. I found myself really noticing everyone else around me, and thinking about them, and understanding how specific markers of their appearances could be tweaked and would completely alter my perception of whether or not they were good looking or smart or someone I wanted to be around. Class, baby. We are not in a classless society. It's something I KNEW, but I didn't FEEL it until I read this book. Of course, I'm probably someone else's faded metal concert T wearing, bad haircut sporting, imperfect teeth chomping, poor unfortunate soul. Weird.

[Irene · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the story of a dysfunctional family and its dysfunctional members. But they could not be dysfunctional because they had to function, if they could function and isn’t that what they did? I found this novel overwritten, but the literary critics did not. I found the characters selfish and short-sighted, the atmosphere depressing, and the underlying assumptions negative.

[Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is probably the best book I've ever read. The book is long (508 pages) and the story is thick. The lives of Loretta, Maureen, and Jules all take unexpected, yet somewhat expected turns throughout their trying lives. It can be depressing at times but there is always hope for redemption, even though it's unclear what, if any, comes. You won't be disappointed with "Them" and I can't wait to read more of her books.

[Brian Fagan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most people are familiar with the Detroit riot of 1967, which serves as the finale of Joyce Carol Oates' early novel Them. Not as many remember the rioting that occurred in 1984 when the Tigers won the World Series. I was a 4th year Surgery resident at Henry Ford Hospital and provided care for three of the shooting victims that night.

Them, written in 1969, won the National Book Award and put Oates on the map. It is actually largely based on the early life of one of Ms. Oates' students, who is the character Maureen. The story begins in an unnamed "fair-sized city on a midwestern canal" in 1937. It follows Loretta and two of her children, Jules and Maureen, to a rural community and then to Detroit over a 30-year span.

The novel is largely a collection of young people's existential thoughts and yearnings, and these carry the meat of the plot as much or more than the characters' actions. In this sense I was reminded of Steinbeck (especially In Dubious Battle, and to a lesser extent The Grapes of Wrath) and Dostoevsky. There is a lot of daydreaming. The family never has any money, and lives in various levels of poverty and even squalor. In that light I was also taken back to The Jungle by Sinclair Lewis. Nothing on earth is sadder than parents who are so unhappy that they belittle their own children.

Listen to Loretta:

"The things a woman has to take from men can drive her crazy."

And Jules:

He " ... didn't want $19,000 ... he wanted a wilderness, a clearing in the wilderness ..."

And Jules' friend:

" ... the fact is that you have nowhere to go, like me, and that's exactly what we all want to change ... something more permanent, something transcendent -"

I imagine Oates' stimulus and thought processes as she conceived and wrote Them were strongly influenced by the precepts of The Summer of Love in San Francisco in 1967 as well. In this early work, her style is over-the-top and stream-of-consciousness laden. Not only the thoughts but the actions of her characters become increasingly disjointed as the time of the riot nears.

Not surprisingly, Oates in 1969 had more talent in producing interesting plot than in the eloquent or arresting writing that I love so much in her mature works.

[Graham Wilhauk · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm sad. This book should have been an absolute masterpiece. In fact, in many ways, it was. The story was gripping and didn't feel flat for one single moment. JCO's writing is as spectacular in 1969 as it is 50 years later in 2019. There was a LOT that I ADORED from this book and I still overall loved this. However, it should have been one of my new all-time favorites. So, what stopped it?

THE CHARACTERS.

The characters were all unlikable in their own way. I know I sound like a MASSIVE hypocrite as "The Secret History," a book KNOWN for how despicable its characters are, sits as my all-time favorite book. However, there are different kinds of unlikable characters around the world of literature. "Them" just happens to have the kind of characters that I usually can't get behind AT ALL. Don't get me wrong, they were VERY well written and complex. However, there is a CLEAR difference between being good characters and liking a cast of characters.

I could get behind people like Henry Winter being a diabolical mastermind in the form of a classics student but I could NOT get behind Loretta talking crap about everyone in order to (somehow) restore faith in her family (it doesn't make much sense to me either). I could get behind Holden Caulfield in "The Catcher in the Rye" being as angsty as angsty can get and sticking with that angsty behavior but I could not do the same with Jules pulling a COMPLETE one-eighty in the last 100 pages. I could get behind the boys from "Lord of the Flies" dictating and controlling one another like some pack of wild animals but I could not get behind Maureen being lost until a nearly fatal incident. These characters were either despicable to no end or, in the case of Maureen, just punching bags for the despicable characters.

I know this review has been mainly me talking about this book's one BIG flaw. Though let it be know that I still LOVE this book. The story is EASILY the best one I've read in 2019 so far. The writing is usual JCO greatness. However, this book was written in the first part of her career. Heck, this was, at the time of publication, only her fourth novel to be published. This kind of resonated with me and it made me think how much of a great book this really is. Not even an INSANELY flawed cast of character could stop me from loving what I did love out of this book.

In general, "Them" is still a masterpiece. However, it is a flawed masterpiece. Even though the characters lack the connection needed for this book to be an ABSOLUTE masterpiece, everything else hits bullseye with every move. JCO is still my favorite author besides Donna Tartt (which THAT can even be debated on now) and "Them" is only a testament to that. It will have to take a full-on 5 star rating to take this book away from being my favorite book so far in 2019. I still HIGHLY recommend this one!

I am giving this one a 4.5 out of 5 stars.

[Mahmoud Amr · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very important aspect of good writing, a quality most staggering that always reveals itself in a competent, crafty, good writer, is that a story, a plot, even a premise, could be so outside your scope of interest, ten feet radius away from your care and fucks to give- and yet still captivates you as a reader and keep you going, just by the sole swift power of a writer's prose and style alone. That sums up my relationship with them. The story in and of itself, filled to the brim with exaggerations and melodrama worthy of the shittiest soap opera out there-lets not forget the Jules and Nadine arc of which its vibes gave me ptsd flash back of the horrible twin peaks episodes of silly pout kid James and his cringe black widow lady. Thank you very much- was so meh to me and I swear if it weren't for JCO, I would've thrown away the book, because Donna Tartt's shitty novels were bad enough to my reading experience and I would never expose myself to such bad, poor, vapid, fecal matter in nature type of writing that is only relevant BECAUSE A BUNCH OF NITWITS GEN Z GOOD 4 NOTHING TIKTOKERS BRATTY MOTHERF........

The novel is a "naturalistic novel" abt a wretched working class family in Detroit. There's a lot of the 19th century naturalistic writing schemes, worthy of a meticulous Zola, or a sadistic frenzy eye for details à la Flaubert, and a D.H Lawrencian scalpel psychology dissection of characters and masculine prowess in its medusian gaze for both gender alike that will make your inner feminist-snowflake-wuss-generation self enraged.

Yet, JCO never stops @ that. From the very first page, the dreaded "Author's Note" let you in on a metafictional joke: "the story is not fictional at all, Maureen Wendall was a student of mine, this is her story according to her, I even embedded some of her letters to me in some chapters, here be my guest, read them". And you as a gullible reader take the bullet.

The joke was on you, dear reader, mon ennemi, mon semblable! For the note, and the JCO addressed in the MW letters were also fictional.

Even the arc that was the most hard on me, Jules and his Nadine, was written in a prose that was dissecting in very cold and detached, yet at the same time poetic!, The power relation at play and the manifestation of Eros and Thanatos in male sexuality. That was totally brilliant too.

Also, if you want a Don Delillo esque type of dialogues between silly 60's students revolutionaries, then this novel is for you.

If you want a dissection of human cruelty, racism, misogyny, bloodline curses and american dream red pilling and other shit worthy of a Faulkner or an O'cconor, then this novel is for you.

All in all, its a good parody of naturalistic writing. JCO is a superb writer. I believe she can write anything and excel @ it

[Alicia Farmer · Rating 1 out of 5]

The sum was less than the whole of its parts.

I can't put my finger on what I didn't like about this book. I want to say it was boring, but how can a book that includes rape, murder, madness and riots be boring? And while I thought the dialogue was really well written, the characters had nothing to say.

The book felt arbitrary and random. So much so, it really did seem like reportage of one family's lives. This, for any of our lives, without the overlay of storytelling, becomes just a tedious series of events. Thus go 500+ pages of "them."

I couldn't tell which secondary characters I should be paying attention to. Events that seemed significant at the time amounted to nothing. Other major events occurred between chapters, so that one was plunked down in a new and disorienting place and had to figure out what was going on.

Probably all of this was intentional on Oates's part. Why not make the reader feel as groundless, as subject to caprice, as confused as the characters in the story? If that was her intention, it only made me frustrated, not sympathetic.

Finally, I think the book could be improved by liberal editing. It's too long; its length doesn't add to its value. 1-2 pages of characters saying anguished I love yous would convey the insanity of a relationship as well as the 10 or 20 Oates uses. So many scenes went on for too long. I would think "I get your point," and still have pages and pages of the same to wade through.

I only stuck this out because it's part -- the very first part, in fact -- of my plan to read a National Book or Pulitzer Prize winner from each year of my life between now and when I turn 50 in 2019. I'm still scratching my head that this was the National Book Award winner for 1970.

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought this book was great... at first. The further in I got, the less I could stand it. It just became more and more dull and predictable. Even the characters seem to grow weary of it, muddling through their adult lives in a total stupor. At about page 245 things took a turn for the worse. Yet somehow I managed to slog through it - until chapter 12. Who wants to read page after page of two boring, half-asleep characters going through mysterious '60s-style sex scenes? What's so interesting about these people anyway? I struggled through 30 or so pages of utter crap just to see if there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Nope, there isn't. Why did I read so much of this book?

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. A tragic, depressing, engaging novel about a dysfunctional working class family living in inner Detroit during the period 1937 to 1967.

It is a very eventful book with tragic events happening to the main characters, Loretta and her children, Jules and Maureen. All three are odd characters, easily led. They all become involved with people who behave badly.

This book was first published in 1969 and won the 1970 National Book Award.

[Northpapers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Joyce Carol Oates is the Tom Waits of highbrow pulp fiction.

My friend Jonathan Kotulski made the above statement, mostly in jest I think, during a recent phone conversation.

We had been talking about Kafka, Musil, Borges, and David Foster Wallace, then I mentioned that I was still feverishly reading novels and short stories by Joyce Carol Oates, and that I didn't completely understand why. The Tom Waits comparison came from the fact that she has produced a huge catalog, and managed to stay consistently challenging over the course of several decades.

My most recent JCO book is actually one of her earlier works. As illustrated boldly in the picture above, it is named Them. The title, which actually does help in the interpretation of the book, does very little to tell you what you are about to read. Nor does the illustration. Nor do maybe the first 400 pages, over the course of which a quarreling, unlikable family staggers through two generations of rapes, murders, beatings, racism, domestic violence, abandonment, bereavement, rebellion, infidelity, alcoholism, obesity, and cancer.

In general, I found the book to be melodramatic, overdrawn, miserable, and taxing. However, there are two tricks JCO pulls, which although they struck me as a little cheap at the time, in retrospect help to tie the thing together and make its reading worthwhile.

The first trick she plays twice. In her intro, she bills the story "a work of history in fictional form." Later in the novel, she prints several letters written by one of the protagonists to herself. She artfully pleads with her readers to accept that, "This is the only kind of fiction that is real."

The second trick, which is complicated by the first, is a bit of a deus ex machina, but in my opinion, it works. The history of the minor characters in the novel is, without much set-up or warning, suddenly linked to major historical events, and everything changes. Which I guess is how major historical events interact with the urban poor, striking without warning. The whole book, the characters seem like anonymous cogs in a big, crushing wheel, then without much warning or setup, the axle breaks.

So at the end of Them, readers are confronted with a story that seems too bad to be true, with a twist that seems too big to be true, yet the author repeateadly claims that the badness and bigness are both historical fact.

As a reader, I love stuff like this. It places me on a precipice. I am cynical, but as P.T. Anderson reminds pomo cynics in Magnolia, "These things happen."

I rarely encounter books that engage me in a struggle, that effectively prod me to reframe, or restate, how I think about the world, its workings, and my connection to them, but Them is one such book. And that doesn't mean I like all the grand gestures, the melodramatic sexual drama, the barrage of tragedies, or the absorption with violence and tension, but like they do in all JCO books, these things fill a space worth exploring, even if they leave me feeling ambivalent and more than a little disturbed.

[Julien Law · Rating 3 out of 5]

Do you remember that one side of your redneck family who really struggled with life, and the kids/cousins were always having fights, losing jobs, and getting into trouble? No judgment on poverty here, as we all had it, but more of a a discussion on how it can lead to a lack of education and insight at times. I grew up with it too, just lucky enough to be on a side of the family that struggled for some positivity and betterment of our lives. Maybe there was more than just one side of your family, especially if you are from a small Midwestern town like I am. I remember. I remember being too fearful to go to their house after school although they were family, because I knew that something unsettling would happen, like a mean hearted bully cousin shooting a bb gun at me for kicks or a dog biting me and my uncle/aunt not caring about it despite my leg bleeding aggressively. All of these things happened, and more, which left me with a sad type of feeling for these family members and the hardness that was their lives. Well this story follows one such family. This is a slightly depressing tale of a lady named Loretta and her three children as they grow up in Detroit in the 40s, 50s and 60s, and struggle through poverty, crime, violence, and other disparities faced by a single mother of three. It gives you that slightly uncomfortable feeling, where you wish people didn't lead such sad lives, but at the same time you feel better off for knowing about it and more in touch with the reality of the world for listening and caring. This isn't a heartwarming story by any means, and at times the author rambles, but other times she makes observations with such acuity that it is inspiring and truly impressive. Oates shows no fear in discussing topics that I would never have the guts to write about, which is very brave of her to do. Worthy read, for certain.

But beware, the title is indicative of the racism of the period. I hate this kind of thing, but then most of literature has it from this time period and can we just update it all to be less racist or what? Do we keep these novels as a time stamp on history? Did the author mean to be racist or just accurately describe time periods and characters of those generations? Do we want to erase this and forget how people truly were, risking a repeat of this terrible history? Ugghhhhggg. It's not for me to decide but these things are uncomfortable for me to have on my shelves.

[JimZ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not one of my fave books that I have read by Joyce Carol Oates. Winner of the National Book Award. At this time Ms. Oates was an Associate Professor at the University of Windsor, Ontario "and is currently at work on a new novel" (from inside cover of back of dustjacket). Question is when she WASN'T working on a novel, a short story, or a play. I think she must write in her sleep.

I attended a book reading of hers in the late 1990s and I think it was at Loyola University in Chicago or maybe it was Roosevelt University. Anyway I showed up super early and I was the only one there and who should walk in but Joyce Carol Oates and a professor who sponsored her talk (I guess). They sat in the front row directly ahead of me and she dropped her wool hat right in front of my chair!!!!!!! What a way to make a conversation with at the time was then my favorite author of all time!!! So I gently tapped her on the shoulder and said excuse me Ms. Oates but you dropped this. And she thanked me and all I remember after that was I made an inane comment about liking Peter Taylor's works (like I don't know maybe I was trying to impress her?) and she said something like "oh". It was not a long conversation. I wonder if she remembers me?

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the 3rd novel in the quartet of the Wonderland Series, and not having read the other books, I was unsure as to whether I would be able to pick this up and "catch on". Never fear...Joyce carol Oates does it right. You can read this book and not have ever even heard of the others and still enjoy it on its own! She takes you back to the 5o's in Detroit and lets you see and feel how it was to be poor and struggling in those days. It's about race, class, family, love, urban life, marriage, women, the shebang! As always, I loved it. There is something about her writing that just pulls me in and makes me identify with her women characters. Somehow she seems to know everyone would feel, from the young child who is terrified of her father to the abused teenager who wants to get away and be a good mother...

[Marc Lamot · Rating 2 out of 5]

Detroit, the car-assembling city of the US, from the 1930's until the 60's, that is the framework of this novel. Oates looks at the world through the eyes of three people: Loretta and her children Jules and Maureen. It's above all a social portrait of the time: the characters are struglling with deprivation, with the tension between what should be and what is. The story is unfold very slowly and the perspective changes a lot. The method of storytelling was rather dry and I had difficulties to identify with the main characters. So, not a success for me.

[Tricia Dower · Rating 5 out of 5]

A masterpiece. More controlled than some of Oates's later work, although this book could have been trimmed without harming it, especially at the end. I was totally immersed in the lives of Loretta and her family as they experience decades of life in Detroit, the city coming alive through the words.

[Cathryn Conroy · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1974 as an English major in college, I took a class on the 20th century American novel. While I was taking this class, I read Joyce Carol Oates’s “them” on my own. I devoured it. I handed my paperback copy of the book to my professor, asking him if had ever read it. He had not. I said, “Read it. I think it should be on the syllabus the next time you teach this class.” He did. And he agreed with me. What was then a relatively new book is now, nearly 50 years later, a 20th century classic.

Like all of Joyce Carol Oates’s books, this is a difficult read. The subject matter is violent, horrific, deeply tragic. The book is long, so I felt mired for more than a week in this deeply dark world she created. But the writing, the language, the overt and subtle messages, and symbolism are all so exquisite I just had to keep reading no matter how sad, how depressed I felt when I came up for air.

“them” is the third in the “Wonderland” quartet that also includes “A Garden of Earthly Delights,” “Expensive People,” and “Wonderland.” (They can be read in any order.) Each book explores not only social class in America, but also geographic class. “them” focuses on a downtrodden, poor, uneducated white family living in the inner-city slums of Detroit from the 1940s to the fiery and brutal July 1967 Detroit riot.

While this is the story of the extended Wendall family, it primarily focuses on two characters: siblings Jules and Maureen. Both are victims of their family, their community, and the times. Their lives are nothing more than schemes and battles to try to survive—physical fights and psychic fights. They are good people who do bad things. The story plays out with passion and fervor in a kind of fever dream for the reader. It is unrelenting, which makes it so hard to read, but brilliant because of its true-to-life depiction of Jules and Maureen’s lives.

And this is the genius of Joyce Carol Oates: I cared very much about each of the characters, even though the only thing I have in common with them is our shared humanity. This is real literature. It will challenge and delight, but it’s not a light, easy read. Know that going in.

Bonus: Do read the afterword by Joyce Carol Oates where, among other things, she explains at some length the meaning of the title of the book, as well as the cryptic and somewhat bizarre Author’s Note that precedes the novel.

[Chris Gager · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just read JCO's little intro last night. I have to finish another book first so I'll probably start tomorrow. I wanted to read "What I Lived For" but haven't been able to find it at the local libraries so I'll read this relatively famous one. "We Were the Mulvaneys" was only so-so for me but I want to give the author another shot. My edition is a paperback with a murky B&W cover photo of a riot scene.

Day one... still barely into the book but I like the author's style. Abrupt... almost brutal.

Another day... making some progress here but my spare time has become precious. Job demands and car woes... I was thinking that I've read a number of books in the recent years about the troubles of white families in the land of opportunity(America): "The Corrections", "After This", and "We Were the Mulvaneys" are some of those that come to mind and now this book, which drops the observo-scope down lower on the old socioeconomic scale. The family in this book is intensely dysfunctional, nomadic and hopeless. Emotional and spiritual nourishment for the kids is not forthcoming. We are learning how two of the children cope and try to create their own more satisfying and protected inner lives, immune from the stresses of their wider(though still constricted) environment. Escape is dreamed of... Who are "them" anyway? The faceless flyover people of America I suppose. Dead-enders both urban and rural. Obviously JCO finds the subject fascinating and the fact that Maureen is based on a real person and her family makes it extra compelling. Not many left in Detroit I suppose. Maybe Eminem came from the same background as Maureen. She(or someone like her) could be his mother I suppose. "Middlesex" was also set in Detroit. A very different kind of story, though.

Day next... Another hundred pages into this grim saga. I can sort of relate to those who express misgivings about sticking with the "pain" family all the way. I'm semi-committed to sticking with it. JCO is not a great writer but she's pretty good and she means business. Notes:

- Loretta is another mother in the vein of Mama Mulvaney; hysterical, clueless and narcissistic but a survivor.

- seeing parallels with the "Roseanne" show. R. worked as a hair salon go-fer too. Pretty much the same hollering social class too.

- as in "Vanity Fair" money and/or the lack thereof is paramount. Having it offers a means of escape to freedom and control.

Wed. night... Life is ever strange. Shortly after reading the Jules-Nadine story I went to see "Moonrise Kingdom", a tale of confused young lovers on the lam... escaping. As for JCO's version I'm not convinced. Maureen's story seems genuine enough but the Jules-Nadine thing sounds like some dreamy, overheated 50's movie script; think James Dean and Natalie Wood. I was a teenager and did plenty of talking and listening. I never heard crap like that. And even in the further development section following they aren't convincing as somewhat older human beings either. Maureen's letter's were wonderful. Were they real? Notes:

- I'm reminded of a fine New Yorker story of 20 or so years ago(JCO?) about a young woman escaping(St. Louis) from a disintegrating family after the father's death.

- Jules=Leo Di Caprio=Frank in "Rev. Road" - a bullshitter

- many tales out there of young lovers on the run in America: "Thieves Like Us", "They Live By Night", "Bonnie and Clyde", "Badlands"...

- Jules and Bernard... what happened to the clever and "resourceful" Jules? A bunch of B.S.?

- The author's bad habit of going on and on, which crippled "... The Mulvaneys" crops up again.

- on page 306... "... they hadn't money"????? How about "they didn't have any money" or "they had no money"?

- Jules' southern sickness reminds of Joey's S. American woes in "Freedom".

Finished after the weekend. Well... Joyce has done it again; turned a 4* into a 3* by over-writing and overreaching. Same as with my other JCO read "We Were the Mulvaneys". This is a better book but not by much. I want to write a lot about what's wrong with this book but I find myself with a deficit of caring right now. 500 pages for Maureen to tell the creepy Jules to take a hike... I find myself at a loss to understand the fascination and even attraction of the author to Jules. Let's see... runaway, child-arsonist, mugger, burglar, abductor, adulterer, kidnapper, pimp, helpless(?) exploiter of women(can't seem to stop calling ALL of them "Honey"), rioter, looter and, yes, finally an apparently remorseless murderer. When JCO speaks of "her deep regard for Jules" it reminds me of Mailer's infatuation with Jack Henry Abbott. These writers like hypnotized babies in the face of clueless, destructive and criminal narcissism. I'm not saying that the fucked-up lives of people like Loretta, Nadine, Maureen, Brock, Betty(what happened to her?), Jules and Jim(GET IT?) are not fascinating from a more detached socio/psychological perspective but get off the "feeling sorry" for them. Get 'em off the streets first. I liked Denis Johnson's approach in describing the Houston brothers better. Gritty and unsentimental... Maureen's struggles seem to be mostly a result of environment and circumstance but Jules was weird from the git-go. No doubt the depressing family environment didn't help but he seemed close to going the Bundy route. A better, more interesting and accessible(to me) route for the author would have been contained by more objectivity. Notes:

- Jules reminds of Jack Boughton in "Home".

- Once again the author writes way too much delirious prose about someone in spiritual/emotional crisis(Jules). I had to start skipping so I could finish the book. Same with Marianne Mulvaney...

- Her writing in this book reminded me of "3 Lives" by Gertude Stein. This is not good a good thing but JCO did the dreamy repetitive prose thing better. I guess the idea is to give a realistic word picture of someone's inner life. All that looping repetition and return. The problem is that most of this inner life is non-verbal except for imagined conversations, and thus troubling and potentially excruciating ("Melanctha") when replicated as prose.
3.25 stars...

5-16-2019 update ... Yesterday I read/skimmed the Wiki page for Charles Manson(why? - It's complicated - I was following a brain thread) and it occurred to me that Manson's "life" was reminiscent of that of Jules. I wonder if Manson was an inspiration to the author?