You Must Remember This

This novel from 1987 by Oates hits many of Oates's strengths with a touch of Lolita or incest, but without the mental obsessions of Nabokov's famous novel. All in all, it is one of Oates's most interesting novels and I recommend the book. Joyce Carol Oates was born in 1938 in upstate New York State and is a distinguished Professor of Humanities at Princeton. She gained fame with her first novel With Shuddering Fall in 1964. Now four decades later, she is the author of scores of novels, many short stories, essays, plays, and poetry. The present novel from 1987 is somewhere near the middle of the chronological order of her body of work and we see the polished prose of an experienced writer. I have read a number of her works from different time periods in her career and set up a Guide to Joyce Carol Oates Listmania list. Compared to her early novels, this is a straightforward and almost a "light" read. It contains some drama but there are a few intense scenes, but less than in some other works. The novel has a good story structure and easy prose, and the reader is spared the "too much prose" found in some early works such as The Assassins. The read is mostly compelling. Oates is known for her emotional and dramatic stories, often with women or even poor women such as students or teachers caught up in stressful situations, and often set in her native upstate New York (Niagara River - Syracuse - Erie,PA. triangle). Actually, some of her best work is found in her 10 to 20 page short stories, which are often dramatic, sometimes very intense, and many involve off-beat characters, and they include rapes, murders, and people with serious mental health issues, etc. People who have not read her collections of short stories should take a look at those. The present novel contains many of those off-beat elements. It is a story set in a town in upstate New York. The story is about a middle class family and their uncle, a retired fighter, who is about 20 years younger than the father. The father runs a used furniture store. The story is set in the post WII years and the fifties, and contains some political and social elements from that era including the development of nuclear weapons, peace protests, bomb shelters, the McCarthy hearings, citizens being arrested for being suspected communists, Cadillac cars with big fins, etc. The story is mostly about the youngest daughter, Enid Stevick, who is a young teenage student and their flamboyant uncle aged 30 or so, Felix. As mentioned, he is their father Lyle's step brother. They live in the industrial port town of Orinskay, New York, a town similar to other American industrial towns on the Great Lakes. This is a relatively compelling read, but lacks the intensity of some of Oates's short stories. As a work by Oates it is a well balanced and interesting work. It is about the characters and how they change as they age, and particularly but not exclusively the interaction of Uncle Felix and Enid. This is one of h

Oates, my favorite writer, refuses to give in to those who would have us think the 1950's were a placid, contented decade of plenty for everyone. In truth they were fraught with perils, economic and social, and under the surface of post-war calm, the decade boiled with tensions that underlay the fears of the American psyche. In these pages, behind the tale of an incestuous love story of a teenaged niece and her half-uncle, a boxer who might merit a title shot, is the Red Scare, the fear of the bomb, the social intolerance of McCarthyism, and the terror of the consequences of straying from the norms the American culture had set. My favorite scene in this book, and also its most frustrating, is when the father of the family at the heart of this energetic, moody novel, is taken into custody and ruthlessly interrogated by governmental agents, after he is reported for possible "Red sympathies". The cause of this detention? The man had opened an atlas at his store to show an ignorant, argumentative "true blue red-blooded patriotic American" that China, against which the US was at war in Korea at that time, was geographically larger than the United States. In the '50's, that could be all it took to ruin someone's life. You Must Remember This IS also the tale of a secret sexual affair between a teenage girl and her own father's half-brother. It begins with one of the most compelling and addicting ten pages in literature, as the girl undertakes a suicide attempt in her family's presence, in the dead of night. This action funnels any worthy reader in for at least the next hundred pages, at which point it becomes too late to turn back: Oates has already woven her spell. You Must Remember This does not set out to be all things to all readers, but in its tale of tragic love, political intimidation and nuclear fears infiltrating the country's subconscious, it is very nearly that.

I read this book a number of years ago and I can still remember, vividly, what the story is about--the characters--the setting. I took to watching boxing for a while after I read it, not the big title matches but the small town boys going at it dreaming of fame. Thanks to Ms. Oates' love for boxing I found a new way to see this "sport". But that is not what I remember most. I remember a character who is nothing short of a despicable, who does evil, unspeakable things and who I was made to care about. I don't think he will ever leave me...I couldn't forget him if I tried. Reading Oates can make you a more compassionate person--if you want her to our not. What a gift. Read the book, you won't be sorry you did--and, it is my guess that you too will remember this one.

I was amazed at how good this book was...I have been reading so many books that are just so FORGETTABLE (Vinegar Hill...what was that about...I can't remember...), or worse, just plain trashy (Divine Secrets of Ya Ya Sisterhood...please....). This one was in a totally different league. If you want to read something by someone who can really write, choose this. Forget all about Oprah.

Read this book and you will know how people lived in the 50's. Read this book and you will know how people live today - whith the same dreams, illusions, threats and hunger. But with a big difference - in a more complicated world. You must remember this is a magnificant book - I just can't recommend it enough.