Them by Joyce Carol Oats

[1001shelf]

Reviews go here.

[Amanda]

This book follows the lives and tragedies of the Wendell family through mother Loretta, and children Marueen and Jules (Betty is also one of the children, but I felt she was underdeveloped and underutilized). It goes from the 1930s mid-west to the 1960s Detroit race riots, and focuses on the barriers of working class life- and the horrors that often arise from them (pretty crime and prostitution included), and what love means in these situations.

Overall, I thought it was fine. At first when I considered all the events I At first I thought “it’s a bit much” but then I read her bio and remember the lives of a lot of people in my family and hometown and thought ‘naw it’s about right’.

The only real problem I had with this book is I got the point and all, but I just wasn’t moved by it. Sadly, that’s a problem I generally seem to have with Oates despite her pedestal-like reputation: I want to like her work more than I do. Explorations of independent womanhood, working class barriers and tragedies, academia, etc should all hit me right in the heart- but something about her writing I find a little procedural and lacking in giving ‘heart’ to the characters or story that makes me (who already gets their struggle) have that compassionate and deep response that should be automatic. I had to look up her bio because at one point I thought she was likely born middle class and that’s why none of it felt real to me. I guess I just don’t vibe with her writing style that much.

Like, not to be a Canadian supremacist but I felt like this book was like the bronze medal to Fall on Your Knees and The Tin Flute. I gave it 3 stars: dunno if I would put it on the list or pick a different one from her huge repertoire instead.

[Gail]

Joyce Carol Oates is a writer's writer with a sure hand and apparently unwavering faith in her own powers. In Them, I experienced this in noting how she didn't tack back and forth to capture this low income family between 1930 and the race riots of 1960's Detroit, but much like one of her characters, Loretta, she simply marched ahead, giving me at full throttle the emptiness and hollowness of this life. Although our primary characters Loretta, Jules and Maureen each have the ability to carry hope for a new life tomorrow only Loretta does not fall into a crippling depression that leaves both Maureen and Jules all but inert. Maureen describes this as being asleep. There is a great deal of mastery in being able to keep a reader reading about people that can not really feel, can not act and can not see a clear way forward. However, while I acknowledge that mastery and her self assurance, I did not feel that the final product, was a masterpiece. I found Jules obsession with Nadine to be realistic enough but I did not find their journey to Texas to be satisfying and the race riots do capture the tension, despair and ultimate destruction, but the hippy professor and the meaningless intellectual arguments which I guess were supposed to be satire didn't do it for me. I ultimately landed where Amanda landed. I wanted to care. I liked Jules as a child but not as a pimp, woman beater and a murderer. I liked Maureen's attempt to escape the chaos, noise and confusion but lost interest when she decides on marriage as her only option. Intellectually, I understand that Oates was correct in saying that it was Maureen's only option and I certainly don't have to like all the characters in a book but nevertheless a book that should have left me strongly moved by the horrible circumstances depicted, left me feeling nothing much at all.

[Pip]

them describes the lives and fortunes of poor white people living in Detroit. The book encompasses three decades and two generations of the Wendell family, whose dreams and aspirations belie their circumstances. Some of the book has brilliant descriptions but much of it drags through the hallucinatory thoughts of the protagonists and I had difficulty summing up enough empathy to continue reading. 3 stars.

[Diane]

Rating: 3 stars


A story about a white trash family living in Detroit. This book really drew me in during the first half of the book. Eventually however, I stopped caring about these people and struggled to make it through the rest of the book.

[Diane]

3.5 stars
I agree with Diane above that the first half of the book was very engaging. I also lost interest in the two main characters by the end of the book.

[[deleted user]]

3 Stars

I have just one word for these characters – unlikeable. Loretta is an unlikeable daughter who becomes an unlikeable mother to you’ve guessed it unlikeable children.

There is not one character in this book that was anything other than unlikeable and that includes all the secondary characters as well.