“If the phrase ‘woman of letters’ existed, [Joyce Carol Oates] would be, foremost in this country, entitled to it.”—John Updike,The New YorkerAs powerful and relevant today as it was on its initial publication,themchronicles the tumultuous lives of a family living on the edge of ruin in the Detroit slums, from the 1930s to the 1967 race riots. Praised byThe Nationfor her “potent, life-gripping imagination,” Joyce Carol Oates traces the aspirations and struggles of Loretta Wendall, a dreamy young mother who is filled with regret by the age of sixteen, and the subsequent destinies of her children, Maureen and Jules, who must fight to survive in a world of violence and danger.Winner of the National Book Award,themis an enthralling novel about love, class, race, and the inhumanity of urban life. It is, ravesThe New York Times,“a superbly accomplished...