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Them (Wonderland Quartet) (Mass Market Paperback)

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4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (24 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"A superbly accomplished vision."

John Leonard, The New York Times

"That rarity in American fiction, a writer who seems to grow with each new book."

Time Magazine

"A superb storyteller. For sheer readability, Them is unsurpassed."

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"When Miss Oates' potent, life-gripping imagination and her skill at narrative are conjoined, as they are pre-eminently in Them, she is a prodigious writer."

The Nation -- Review

Review

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Product Details

Mass Market Paperback: 480 pages
Publisher: Fawcett (December 12, 1984)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0449206920
ISBN-13: 978-0449206928
Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 1.1 inches
Shipping Weight: 8 ounces

Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (24 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #221,635 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
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	74% buy the item featured on this page: Them (Wonderland Quartet) 4.7 out of 5 stars (24)
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Customer Reviews

24 Reviews

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
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Average Customer Review

4.7 out of 5 stars (24 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Revolutionary realism, November 9, 2004

By	A.J. (Maryland) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

"Them" has an intriguing and even risky premise: Joyce Carol Oates, who was teaching literature at the University of Detroit in the 1960s, receives some rambling, emotionally revelatory letters from a former student and fashions a novel out of this poor girl's life story. The girl was not a good student--Oates had flunked her, and it's easy to see why if her epistolary manner indicates the quality of her literary essays. But the passion and the pain in her letters cry out for a story to be told, one that is probably more interesting than any that could have been furnished by a better, happier pupil.

The girl is given the pseudonym of Maureen Wendall, and "Them" is the saga of her dysfunctional lower-class family from 1937 to about 1966. A laundry list of domestic turmoil--rape, murder, attempted murder, assault, accidental death--devastates the Wendalls as they migrate throughout the poor neighborhoods of Detroit, chasing solvency and dignity in vain. Her older brother Jules, a restless, rebellious spirit, can't stay away from bad influences or out of trouble, and her younger sister Betty is a mischievous tomboy whose delinquency seems to arise from familial neglect--they only take notice of her when she's doing something wrong, which of course is most of the time.

Maureen herself is bright enough and behaves well; she likes to read and makes the public library her sanctuary, where in the permanence of the words of Jane Austen novels she finds a comforting reality lacking in the instability of her home life. Her innocence is destined to falter, however; as a teenager, she begins meeting an older man and accepts money for having sex with him. When her ogreish stepfather suspects her of misdeeds, he beats her severely, incapacitating her to a bedridden, emotionally withdrawn state for about a year.

Jules, in the meantime, has quit school and begun living the life of a job-hopping, potentially dangerous drifter, part Frank Chambers, part Studs Lonigan, and (to be kind) a little part Tom Joad. He is hired as a chauffeur by a blundering rich (or once-rich) man named Bernard and through him meets his pretty niece, Nadine, a girl residing in an affluent suburb representing a world he has never before been able to attain. She runs away with him, and what happens to them on their cross-country journey and then afterward is too sad to be comical and yet too absurd to be tragic in the classical sense; too gross for the conventions of fiction, it could be expected to happen only in real life.

Oates culminates this novel filled with various kinds of violence in a race riot, against the backdrop of which the ideological diatribes uttered by several characters newly introduced to the story, advocating large-scale social changes for the nation, seem oddly removed from the more private concerns of the Wendall family. But, after all, the Wendalls' privacy is impacted and influenced by the public force of human presence, the people we don't necessarily know: "them." Much of the novel is uncomfortable to read, not so much with regard to the physical violence as when the characters use abusive language to hurt each other, but it resonates with a power and realism rarely seen in fiction.

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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Work Of Excellence, March 2, 2002

By	Heather Marshall Negahdar "SUGAR-CANE" (Bridgetown, Barbados) - See all my reviews

This is one of Ms. Oates' earlier works set in Detroit.
It is a book of excellence as one generation is rolled into the other. A very true to life book where as the characters advance in reaching their destiny however small, they are always setbacks and stumbling blocks, not allowing them to see the light at the end of the tunnel, reminding us of the pathways we've walked before and are forever walking in. This was a very emotional book for me with great depth to the story line.

It is a long book and should be read with patience in order to get the gist of the Detroit the author penetrates in that century with it's poverty, racial and violent concerns. You won't forget Maureen Wendall who some will empathise with you see her desires and the things she yearns for with all her heart and soul.......and you won't forget her brother Jules either...intelligent and so very intricate you wonder what he is about to do next with that brain that never stops ticking. I cannot help saying what a brilliant writer I have found in Ms. Oates, and I encourage those who love her as much as I do to try THEM. I recommend it to all her favourite readers who haven't read this one as yet.
Reviewed by Heather Marshall Negahdar (SUGAR-CANE 02/03/02)

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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is at a constant climax!, March 30, 2000

By	"belladena" (Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews

This book was somewhat of a struggle for me, though I am a giant Joyce Carol Oates fan. I thought it wasn't possible, but "Them" is more of a brooding, dark, and realistic novel than Oates has pulled off anywhere else in her career. Here is a lot of characters that are in constant danger of falling to pieces, of escaping one another, of realizing their limits as individuals and as a family unit. If you are not a reader who can take a kick in the stomach, don't read this book. However, if you are willing to realize there is a hard edge to life which goes unrecognized each day, pick this book up as soon as you can - Oates creates a world fatalism and human conditions that are at once terrifying, yet beautiful: it is hard to look away. I was held breathless and scared until the last word dropped like a boulder.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars oates, them
The reviewers above miss a central point in this, her greatest novel. How can we give our individual lives and the society about us structure? Read more

Published 9 months ago by Harold Kaplan

5.0 out of 5 stars Acute exposure of fragility beneath hard, shielding fa�ades
Apathy is a weapon. Not speaking about their disappointments - as working class kids traditionally aren't supposed to do - made the victims of silence terribly alone and isolated... Read more

Published 15 months ago by Johan Stiel

5.0 out of 5 stars Realism stretched like putty
Perhaps the greatest trick which Oates performs in Them is her ability to take emotions which human beings have been examining for centuries, like love, and pull them apart,... Read more

Published on May 18, 2007 by Eric Maroney

5.0 out of 5 stars The only kind of fiction that is real
As writer Joyce Carol Oates states in the introduction of her "them", this book is `the only kind of fiction that is real'. Read more

Published on February 19, 2006 by Alysson Oliveira

5.0 out of 5 stars Possibly The Novel Upon Which Oates Built Her Reputation
Jules, Loretta, and Maureen Wendall are three of the most tormented and tormenting characters from modern American literature. Read more

Published on February 18, 2006 by Penny Dreadful

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Writing, so-so story
To read this book is a pure pleasure. The writing is amazing, descriptive but not so much that your imagination is constricted. Read more

Published on May 18, 2005 by Kyri

5.0 out of 5 stars makes me want to shoot myself...
... but I love this book. jules, maureen and loretta are the most foolish, pathetic and delusional narrarators that you will ever come across. Read more

Published on January 18, 2005 by D. Peters

5.0 out of 5 stars Oates at her finest
them, written at the beginning of Oates' illustrious career, remains as one of her finest, if not, her finest novel. Read more

Published on July 26, 2004 by K. Huff

2.0 out of 5 stars Them
I was assigned to read this book for my English Honors class. It was very painful. I have never read anything by Oates before. Read more

Published on April 5, 2004 by Karen Brady

5.0 out of 5 stars 5 star book, 5 star edition!
Before I read 'them' all that I had read by Mrs. Oates was 'We Were The Mulvaneys' which did not impress me all that much. Read more

Published on October 14, 2003 by David Vidaurre

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