Group Read, October 2015: them

Our October Group Read is them by Joyce Carol Oates. Please put any comments on this thread. I'll join you when I get my copy in the mail.

I'm about 60 pages into this. The opening section was just devastating, moving from a kind of bodily, generic happiness into specific, shocking tragedy in one great & terrible leap. It was incredibly compelling and certainly sets you up for misery to follow.

I also like the writing style, which is at once perfectly straightforward and very evocative, almost poetic at times. It reminds me a bit of John Updike. In 1001'ers I have recently read, I can see this, Rabbit Run, and also Three Lives as three different attempts to capture the lives of the most ordinary Americans. I'm kind of glad to have read them all relatively near each other.

Somebody else needs to join in on our October read. them is a great book but very dark and disturbing. I think I need a therapy group on this one.

I'm joining in a few days.

I've started. It got pretty rough fast...

I'm waiting for it to arrive from the library, but will be joining in.

I will probably start this weekend.

In another thread I have once judged Oates as way too 'American Dream-ish' for my taste (based on reading We Were the Mulvaneys and Black Water, but I have to admit: no American Dream in this one.

So far (I am about 150 pages in) it is a rather depressing novel but beautifully written and with characters which are so real. I want to read on and on and learn what happens to them although the signs are definitely not positive.

I can see the comparison with Updike in the style, now that Annamorphic mentioned it.

I am now about 100 pages in and agree with much that has been written before - readable, quite compelling and fast paced (in terms of time frame, and focus on the main events in the characters lives). At this stage not sure why it is on the list though - nothing stylistically unique. Maybe it is because it is 'realistic' with no sugar coating and everyone stuck in a rut with no means of escape; as Simone2 says no great American dream here.

Well, I finished them and am deeply impressed. I have to reconsider my opinion of Oates, I think this book shows in a very realistic way the grim existence of 'them', the poor family Wendall, living in Detroit in the 50s and 60s of the 20th century.

To me they started out as 'them' for sure; the Loretta-character is so very far away from anyone I know or can imagine. Her harshness, her quite unconventional (to say the least) love for her children, but also her strength and willpower.
Jules and Maureen, however, were becoming more and more real to me. Their different reactions to the circumstances under which they grow up are quite moving and in a way I can relate to it, which makes 'them' no longer 'them'. I think this is the point that Oates wanted to make with this novel.

Besides that I was shocked by the Afterword after reading the Author's Note!
If you have skipped the Author's note, read it! It doesn't contain any spoilers, but together with the Note at the end, it changed my image of Oates as a writer completely!

Just one question remains: what is the role of the youngest sister Betty and why hasn't she been given a voice? Does anyone have an idea about this?

I am going to sit down and really get stuck into this, it sounds like everybody agrees that it has an impact.

I'd better get moving so I can avoid spoilers on this thread.

I finished the book this evening. The second half had quite a different feel to it than the first - more passionate, more disturbing and I felt the book lost momentum (though stylistically felt more like a "list book").

I re-read the Author's Note which does add interesting perspective to this work of "fiction", but no Afterword in my copy. As for Betty, maybe in light of the Author's Note her story was never heard by Oates sources and she wanted to stay true to them (so to speak).

>12 puckers: How strange, that you miss the afterword. You can read what it's about here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Them_%28novel%29

#12, 13 - Puckers probably has an old edition; the Afterword is clearly later and responds to the public response to the original book.

I'm about 3/4 through and agree that the second half is different and, I think, less good. I found Maureen's story in the first half entirely disturbing. But Jules's odd obsession with the mentally disturbed rich girl (and his previous association with her uncle and the woman) are just weird, unconvincing. It was as if Oates could imagine the tragedy of a poor girl but not a poor boy, so she just wrote something that was less about the Detroit slums and more about America's broken dream.

>13 Simone2: Thanks for the link. That certainly changes my perspective of the Authors Note, and therefore my views at 12 above re Betty. How confusing!

So before the month ends -- anybody have any thoughts about how Maureen eventually takes control of her own destiny? Why do you think Oates handled this the way she did? I was kind of shocked.