Tom's review
Them by Joyce Carol Oates
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 br...more
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 br...more
