Wonderland

Joyce Carol Oates

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Joyce Carol Oates's Wonderland 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. Spanning from the Great Depression to the turbulent Vietnam War era, Wonderland explores social class in America and the inner lives of young Americans, plunging beneath the glossy surface of American life.