{"product_id":"wonderland-isbn-9780812976557","title":"Wonderland","description":"Joyce Carol Oates’s Wonderland Quartet comprises four remarkable novels that explore social class in America and the inner lives of young Americans. Spanning from the Great Depression to the turbulent Vietnam War era, \u003ci\u003eWonderland\u003c\/i\u003e is the epic account of Jesse Vogel, a boy who emerged from a family tragedy with his life spared but his world torn apart. Orphaned after watching his father murder his entire family, Jesse embarks on a personal odyssey that takes him from a Dickensian foster home to college and graduate school to the pinnacle of the medical profession. As an adult, Jesse must summon the strength to reach across the “generation gap” and rescue his endangered teenaged daughter, who has fallen into the drug-infused 1960s counterculture. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHailed by Library Journal as “the greatest of Oates’s novels,” \u003ci\u003eWonderland \u003c\/i\u003eis the capstone of a magnificent literary excursion that plunges beneath the glossy surface of American life. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eWonderland\u003c\/i\u003e is the final novel in Joyce Carol Oates’s Wonderland Quartet. The books that complete this acclaimed series, \u003ci\u003eA Garden of Earthly Delights\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eExpensive People\u003c\/i\u003e, and them, are also available from the Modern Library.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJ\u003cb\u003ePraise for The Wonderland Quartet\u003c\/b\u003e, four early novels by Joyce Carol Oates\u003cbr\u003eModern Library trade paperbacks, on sale September 12, 2006\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA Garden of Earthly Delights\u003cbr\u003eExpensive People\u003cbr\u003ethem\u003cbr\u003eWonderland\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Protean and prodigious are surely the words that describe Ms. Oates.  From the very beginning, as these impressive and diverse novels make clear, her talents and interests and strengths have never found comfort in fashionable restraint.  She's sought, instead, to do it all -- to face and brilliantly, inventively transact and give shape to as much of experience as possible, as if by no other means is a useful and persuasive gesture of moral imagination even conceivable.  For us readers these are valuable books.\" --  \u003cb\u003eRichard Ford\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"These four novels reveal Oates' powers of observation and invention, her meticulous social documentation joined to her genius for forging unforgettable myths. She is one of the handful of great American novelists of the last hundred years. \" --\u003cb\u003e Edmund White \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"This rich, kaleidoscopic suite of novels displays the young Joyce Carol Oates exercising her formidable artistic powers to portray a turbulent twentieth-century America. They offer the reader a singular opportunity to experience some of Oates's best writing and to witness her development, novel by novel, into one of our finest contemporary writers.\" --\u003cb\u003eGreg Johnson\u003c\/b\u003e, author of \u003ci\u003eInvisible Writer: A Biography of Joyce Carol Oates\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\"As a young writer, Joyce Carol Oates published four remarkable novels, \u003ci\u003eA Garden of Earthly Delights \u003c\/i\u003e(1967), \u003ci\u003eExpensive People \u003c\/i\u003e(1968),\u003ci\u003e them \u003c\/i\u003e(1969), and \u003ci\u003eWonderland\u003c\/i\u003e (1971). They were all nominated for the National Book Award, and Oates won the award for \u003ci\u003ethem\u003c\/i\u003e in 1970....Reprinting the series in modern paperback editions nearly forty years after their composition allows us a new perspective on their collective meaning and illuminates their place in Oates's overall career...The Wonderland Quartet, written in the \"white heat\" of youthful imagination and fervor, remains not only relevant but prophetic about the widening social and economic gulf in American society, the self-destructive violence of political extremism, and the terrifying hubris of science and technology. Bringing to life an unforgettable range of men and women, the Wonderland Quartet offers a compelling introduction to a protean and prodigious contemporary artist.\" -- \u003cb\u003eElaine Showalter\u003c\/b\u003e, from her introduction, which appears in all four of these new Modern Library editionsJoyce Carol Oates is the Roger S. Berlind Professor in the Humanities at Princeton University. The bestselling author of the novels \u003ci\u003eWe Were the Mulvaneys\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eBlonde\u003c\/i\u003e, she has written numerous works of fiction, poetry, essays, criticism, and plays.1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Jesse wakes, startled.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Someone has passed by his bed . . . ? And through to the front room,   footsteps going to the kitchen, to the door . . . ?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Jesse's father, unable to sleep. All that fall and winter he has been   unable to sleep much of the night. He puts on his jacket, goes   outside, walks, walks. . . . Jesse goes to a window where he can see   out back: yes, it is his father, shoving an arm through a sleeve of   his jacket as he walks, in a hurry, his head slightly lowered, as if   in a baffled blind rage, like a hunter. . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Jesse's heart pounds with fear. He has seen his father like this in   the past, but now it is nearing Christmas, now there is a light,   quick tone to the air, an expectation in faces, that his father does   not know about, is violating. . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Jesse goes back to bed but cannot sleep himself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It is raining there, in that country.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It is more than thirty years ago and raining, a cold, fierce, driving   rain, rushing across the streets of that town--Yewville, New   York--out of a thick, boiling December sky. The main street is fairly   busy this morning, in spite of the weather. It is the middle of the   month and the middle of the week. Cars splashed with old mud maneuver   around other cars waiting to park in the narrow street; pickup trucks   move by slowly; a Greyhound bus, its exhaust billowing, comes to a   stop in front of the bus station, which was once a gas station, now   painted white. The white is too white on this strange day; it glares   and makes the eye tremble. . . . Up and down the street people are   walking, hurrying against the rain. As they hurry, their heads   ducked, umbrellas raised, the rain begins to turn into bits of ice. A   quick magical change. The dots of ice strike faces, the windshields   of cars, the store windows. . . . On the bumpy surface of the street,   which is gleaming wet, a million bits of ice strike and bounce. The   sign for the Montgomery Ward's store is bombarded with hail and   sounds like a drum. A Christmas streamer with its plastic bells and   wreaths is struck, shudders in the wind, seems about to break in two.   . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Most of Yewville is on either side of this street, Main Street--shoe   stores, clothing stores, sporting goods stores, the bus station, the   movie house, the post office in its fortress-like building, a few   taverns, a gas station, a few restaurants. Then comes an expanse of   vacant land, then the library, which shares a nondescript old   building with the police station, then the high school, a complicated   three-story structure made of dark rough brick, its windows high and   narrow, its roof covered with black, rotting shingles. The hail   strikes against the broad front sidewalk of the high school, running   right up to the double front doors. It strikes against the windows,   as if trying to break them. The windows show no amazement, no faces   behind them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The air looks as if it is coming apart--shredding into molecules of   sand or grit. It is December 14, 1939.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    This is the last day of school before Christmas vacation. School will   end after assembly at one o'clock. In the narrow, dingy halls of the   school students are filing along, heading for the auditorium and its   warped seats, its overheated boisterous cozy air. They make a   crashing noise on the stairs, coming down from the second floor, the   older boys clowning, almost out of control. Their legs are long,   their faces bright and blurred, as if intoxicated. One of their   teachers, a woman of middle age, makes an angry gesture and they turn   away, laughing together. Everywhere there is a smell of wet wool. As   the students pass along the corridor they strike the lockers with   their fists in a kind of giddy rhythm, their excitement almost out of   control. There is a bouncy, hollow, drum-like urgency to the air.   Jesse is going to remember this. Already the high school is   overcrowded, though an addition was built only fifteen years ago.   Boys from the country, surging and clumsy in their overalls, stomp   along the hall heavy as farm animals, banging their fists against the   wall. The girls walk quickly, in little clusters, as if fearful of   the boys. They are all wearing bright red lipstick. Their lips move   and are very red. Because it is the last day of school before   Christmas recess, they are dressed up, in wool dresses and stockings   and high heels. \"Is it snowing? Is it snowing?\" they ask, their   voices lifting shrilly, as if they were testing the air itself, their   necks stretching in front of the boys' eyes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    At the doors to the auditorium a few teachers are posted. The   students pass close by them, bending their heads meekly,   automatically, even the big farm boys, cowed for the moment. Such a   quick warm crowd of them! They are excited, giddy. The air rocks with   their big feet and their giddiness. The familiar odor of wet wool is   mixed with the unfamiliar odor of the girls' perfume, and everywhere   there is the clatter of the girls' high heels. A girl cries out in   surprise--someone has run his finger sharply down her backbone, which   is outlined through her pink wool dress. She turns, pretending anger.   One of the teachers snaps at her: \"Never mind! Keep on going!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    They file into their seats, jostling one another, laughing behind   their hands; on stage, the choir is already singing to welcome them   in. On the right of the stage is a large Christmas tree, donated by   the Yewville Firemen, lit up with strings of light, also welcoming   them in. The choir sings \"Hark the Herald Angels Sing\" to march them   into their seats. A sprightly, energetic tempo. The girls are   attentive and bright-faced. Their eyes are serious. The boys are very   much together, in their own clusters; at certain places a boy must   sit beside a girl, accidentally, and the two clusters come together.   The choir is made up of about twenty students, mostly girls, and it   is conducted by a very small, careful woman with gray curls, her back   to the crowd, her arms moving in short, precise, finicky circles. The   voices rise and fall, singing, marching the other students into   place: \"Hark the Herald Angels sing . . .\" and \"sing\" has two   syllables, both equally accented.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The mood of the students changes gradually; it is not so rowdy now.   Seated, the country boys are not so impatient. Their eyes are fixed   upon the chorus and the Christmas tree. Their hands lie quiet upon   their knees or are folded formally in their laps, a gesture that is   automatic.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The curtain behind the choir is made of velvet, a deep magenta: the   high school's color. Initials Y.H.S. in cream upon this magenta.   Arranged in rows according to height, the chorus sings in front of   this impressive curtain, and the Christmas carol is mixed with the   initials, the flushed excited faces of the singers, the movements of   the choir director's arms inside her frothy sleeves. . . . Something   is going to happen: it is a special assembly, a special day.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    No windows in the auditorium. One boy, seated on the aisle, keeps   glancing back at the doors as if anxious about the weather, or about   getting out. The third time he looks around, the boy sitting directly   behind him thumps the back of his seat. \"Hey, what're you looking   for?\" he says.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"No one. Nothing,\" the boy says.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The boy who has been looking around straightens in his seat, forces   himself to stare straight ahead. He has red-blond hair. His   complexion is not a redhead's complexion, though: it is darker, as if   still tanned from the summer. The boy's face is broad and   intelligent, but creased with thought or worry; he has become very   nervous. For the fourth time he looks around--now they are closing   the doors to the auditorium! He will not be able to get out. The boy   stares up the narrow aisle to those closing doors, ignoring the   taunts of the boy behind him, ignoring his teacher's concern. She is   a woman in her forties, heavyset and hearty and wise, with a liking   for Jesse, but today Jesse has no mind for her or for anyone else.   The chorus is beginning another carol. The words are soft and   cajoling, like snow; they are meant to entice and make quiet--\"O   Little Town of Bethlehem\"--but Jesse can't pay attention to them. He   must get out of this seat, out of this packed hot auditorium, he must   get back home. . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    His father had gone out that morning before dawn. Stomping out the   back path to the woods, his head lowered. . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Jesse suddenly stands, confused.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    He feels himself blushing, even his neck is blushing. He hurries up   the aisle, which tilts slightly, so that he has the impression of   forcing himself up an invisible hill, a small stubborn obstacle meant   to tease him. Someone whistles and calls out, \"Hey, Jesse!\" It is his   cousin Fritz, grinning. He does not make any sign to Fritz. At the   very rear of the auditorium his sister Jean is sitting, and his eye   flies immediately, miserably, to her, to her stern face. She is two   years older than he, sixteen, with a full, spry little body and an   attractive red mouth. But now she looks angry, because Jesse has   embarrassed her. There is a fierce, fine little frown on her forehead.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Tonight at supper she will say, \"Jesse couldn't go to the bathroom   before assembly, oh no, he had to wait until it began and then he   excused himself. . . .\" And Jesse will sit at the table in a fury of   shame and hatred, unable to defend himself, wishing his sister dead.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The high school principal, Mr. Fuller, is standing at the doors.   Jesse whispers that he doesn't feel well, may he be excused? But Mr.   Fuller can't hear him and so he has to say aloud, in his raspy,   hoarse, frightened voice, \"I feel sick . . . may I be excused . . . ?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Mr. Fuller nods gravely, suspiciously. But he does not allow Jesse to   open the door himself; he goes to it and opens it wide, so that Jesse   must pass through close to him, half stooping beneath his arm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Jesse hurries down the corridor. His heart is still pounding, his   face flushed. The skin of his face is almost painful, it is so   flushed. Behind him the choir is singing now of a little town that is   filling up softly with snow, its music misty and unreal, fading now   behind the closed doors; outside there is hail, real snow, violent   and wild. Jesse stares out a window. The sidewalk is trod upon by a   thousand angry feet--invisible feet; there is a raucous ringing to   the air that drowns out the choir's song for Jesse. Bethlehem.   Christmas. His mind jumps from high school and Yewville to the   highway, to his home, his father's gas station and the house a   hundred yards behind it, off the highway, meager and dull in the   storm. The gas station is now closed. Closed permanently. Jesse's   father had closed it, boarded it up, just the day before.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Closed: a sign Jesse's father had painted himself with old black paint.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Jesse helped him nail up the boards without being asked. He wanted to   say to his father's angry, silent back: \"Why are you hammering so   hard? Why are you making so much noise?\" Nails struck deep into the   wood, nails struck sideways and bent, twisted helplessly . . . nails   dropped and lost in the tall grass. . . . But Jesse said nothing. He   helped his father board up the little gas station, with lumber from   an old pile behind the house, and his father hammered the boards in   place, in a row, then crisscrossing on top, as if there were thieves   who might want to break into this old place, cunning thieves who   might be watching them right at this moment, plotting. Jesse wanted   to say to his father gently: \"But nobody will break in here. . . .\"   He wanted to ask, while his father hammered so loudly: \"Why are you   so . . . why are you so strange today?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Why are you so strange? he thinks now.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The high school is seven miles from home. Out there, at the   intersection of the highway and the Moran Creek Road, the gas station   is boarded up, closed permanently, and behind it is the old jumble of   wrecked cars and motorcycles and lumber and tires, and behind that   the small frame house is gleaming with a sudden freakish burst of   sunlight, hail bouncing on its roof. . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    He must leave school and go home. Closing his eyes, he imagines the   house: the gleaming roof, the hailstones, the rotting lumber pile.   His father had bought the gas station, but he had built the house   himself over the years. Hard work. There were a few sheds, and a   garden ragged from late fall, a few trees. Wild bushes. Then the   fence of rusted wire and the beginning of Mike Brennan's farmland . .   . but it was not Brennan's any longer, it had been sold to someone   else, a stranger, who did not live in the area or even in Yewville. A   stranger. Everyone talked about this stranger for a while, wondering   when he would show up. Jesse's mother said, \"It's somebody with money   to throw away, that's for sure. What would he want with that old dead   farm!\" She always spoke of other people's farms and businesses with a   certain haughty, mocking look.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Jesse can hear her voice plainly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She is seven miles away.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    School will be dismissed in another hour, but Jesse won't be able to   go home then. He has to work at Harder's, then get a ride home with a   neighbor at five o'clock. That is four hours away. His heart pounds,   seems to lunge in his chest. . . . He thinks of his mother: her   light, red-blond hair, her eyes almond-shaped and clever and frank.   He takes after her, people say, more than after his father. But he is   thinner than either of them. He is very thin, his feet long and   narrow. He is quite tall for his age--five foot seven--taller than   his mother now. Did she hear Jesse's father go out this morning so   early?--out the back door and into the woods, alone? If anyone talks   about Jesse's father she smiles and looks away, something passes over   her face, quickly, cleverly, and she is silent. She hums under her   breath.National Book Award finalist; The Wonderland Quartet","brand":"Modern Library","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303166791909,"sku":"NP9780812976557","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780812976557.jpg?v=1767744506","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/wonderland-isbn-9780812976557","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}