Around page 260, my interest in the fate of this miserable crew waned. I didn't really care if they all ended up at Woodstock, taking bad acid and drowning in those photogenic mudbaths. In fact, I almost cheered for that outcome. It had been a struggle to engage with these people from the start.

The novel is based on the life of Maureen. She was a real person whom JCO met around 1962 when she was a student in JCO's evening class at the University of Detroit. JCO discovered Maureen's "terrible obsession with her personal history" and became fascinated herself. She had a eureka moment and wrote the whole thing in her detailed, patented, helter-skelter, deadpan style. So it's a non-fiction novel, or whatever such things are called. The problem is that many of the extraordinary twists that befall the three main characters - Loretta and her children Jules and Maureen - are unexplained, perhaps inexplicable. They occur suddenly, like a drive-by shooting. JCO is a drive-by writer. For example, Maureen, at age 16, with no boyfriends and zero sexual experience, becomes a kind of hooker for a while, accepting lifts from guys and sleeping with them for money in motels. Why did she do it? Did she think of the first guy as a boyfriend? It seems her motivation was to get money to leave her oppressive family household where she was treated like a skivvy. But would a girl in 1954 really do this? Suddenly start sleeping with guys for money, all on her own? It didn't seem real at all. But of course, the point of "them" is that it's not actually fiction, it's all true. The truth may be stranger than fiction, as JCO might say, but I think it's JCO's responsibility to offer some interpretation instead of just shrugging and moving on breathlessly to the next weird thing.

Anyway, after 260 pages, I couldn't take any more of this endless stream of banality punctuated by the odd jolt of unexplained violence. This was an early JCO - much better works were to come.

I truly liked the way the story followed the family.

It was without a doubt engaging, and the characters felt extremely real. Their struggle to express themselves or even understand what they truly wanted, especially considering their different socioeconomic backgrounds, made perfect sense.

However, all the talk of "drugged" states and people's inability to understand what was happening in the moment didn't always seem entirely real to me. For instance, Nadine and Jules when she rented the apartment, or Maureen's decision to take to the street. Maureen's illness that lasted for more than a year did feel real at times, but the violence didn't always have that authenticity.

I felt that Loretta was a real character. If this book hadn't been written by a woman, I think I would have been quite angry about the portrayals of helpless girls (although not all of them were helpless, but enough were). As it is, I still feel like there's something that eluded me. This being my first complete book by this author, I would definitely be interested in reading more of her works.

I'm curious to see if she can further develop and explore the complex themes and characters in future books, and perhaps provide a more in-depth understanding of the human condition.

Overall, despite some minor reservations, I found this book to be a thought-provoking and engaging read.

For me, this work is very close to 5 stars.

There are several favorite passages among many.

One is: "She drifted down to the library whenever she was free. Growing up and moving away from home was somehow linked in her mind with the library--the library at night, with its silence and openness. Anything might happen. Nothing happened but anything might." This passage creates a mysterious and somewhat anticipatory atmosphere.

Another one is: "She stared at these pictures, aware of having failed though she was still young; her failure was tied up somehow with her being unable to sleep. She would not grow up into a normal woman: something would catch her and hold her back, some snag, some failure to have dreamed her way out of childhood." It delves into the character's inner turmoil and self-perception.

The line "'. . . [T]here's something sympathetic about you. You have an intelligent victim's face.'" adds an interesting layer to the character's description.

The comparison of an event to a rifle shot that had been fired through the window of a friend of Loretta's, in August, is quite vivid. It shows how sometimes an event can occur and then seemingly have no further consequences, yet still leave an impact.

The description of a character perpetually waiting for something to happen, both anxious for it to occur and for it not to, without knowing what it could be, is also very relatable.

And in closing, as they say: "Fire burns and does its duty." This final statement seems to imply that there is a certain inevitability or purpose in things, much like the unwavering nature of fire.