Joyce Carol Oates,Elaine Showalter
Joyce Carol Oatesâ€™s Wonderland Quartet comprises four remarkable novels that explore social class in America and the inner lives of young Americans. In ,A Garden of Earthly Delights,, Oates presents one of her most memorable heroines, Clara Walpole, the beautiful daughter of Kentucky-born migrant farmworkers. Desperate to rise above her haphazard existence of violence and poverty, determined not to repeat her motherâ€™s life, Clara struggles for independence by way of her relationships with four very different men: her father, a family man turned itinerant laborer, smoldering with resentment; the mysterious Lowry, who rescues Clara as a teenager and offers her the possibility of love; Revere, a wealthy landowner who provides Clara with stability; and Swan, Claraâ€™s son, who bears the psychological and spiritual burden of his motherâ€™s ambition.,A masterly work from a writer with â€œthe uncanny ability to give us a cinemascopic vision of her Americaâ€ (,National Review,), ,A Garden of Earthly Delights ,is the opening stanza in what would become one of the most powerful and engrossing story arcs in literature.,A Garden of Earthly Delights, is the first novel in the Wonderland Quartet. The books that complete this acclaimed series, ,Expensive People,,, them,, and ,Wonderland,, are also available from the Modern Library.
Fiction,Classics,Contemporary,Literary Fiction,American,Americana,Historical,Historical Fiction,Literature,American,The United States Of America,Romance,Novels
A Garden of Earthly Delights