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.2
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.
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One warm evening in August 1937, a girl in love stood before a mirror. 1
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(@ModernLibrary, 12 September 2006, first published 1968, 576 pages, paperback, copy from @AmazonUK, #reread)
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I read Them for the first time a few years ago. I am re-reading JCO's Wonderland Quartet. I enjoyed this a bit better the second time around. It didn't seem like I was going to at first. It took ages, much longer than usual to get into the book. If it had been my first read-through I'd have DNF'd it. But JCO is one of my favourite writers so I stuck with it. And the magic started to happen. JCO is brilliant at characterisation, creating people so real they step off the page and hang around in your room with you as you read. Them is no exception and one of the strengths of the book is the fantastic characters. She's a genius at bringing settings to life as well and Detroit felt very real. Them is about family and poses the age-old question if children learn from the mistakes of the generations before them or are doomed to repeat the same mistakes. Loretta Wendall's children, Maureen and Jules do a bit of both. According to the afterword by JCO this is based on the real experiences of one of her students and this is hinted at in the book when Maureen, recovering after a stint in a psychiatric hospital following a breakdown writes a letter to Joyce Carol Oates, a former tutor at the University of Detroit. Them is a remarkable book. Up next is the final book in the quartet, Wonderland.
