Author Language English Publication date 2002 | Country United States Publisher Ecco Press Media type Print (Paperback) | |
I'll Take You There is a 2002 novel by Joyce Carol Oates.
Contents
Genre
The book can be categorized as belonging to the tradition of the Bildungsroman, in which a sensitive person is growing up or "coming of age" and searches of answers to life's questions with the expectation that these will result from gaining experience of the world.
Plot
I'll take you there consists of three parts, in which the female narrator, originating from a poor, migrant and blue collar family from Strykersville in upstate New York, describes her experiences as an outsider in an upper class sisterhood in Syracuse, New York (part I); her experiences of a lover with a different ethnic (Afro-American) background (part two); and finally her coming to terms with her family background (part three).
The nameless narrator - by her family only called 'you', by her lover called by the fictive name 'Anellia' - joins a sorority in Syracuse, New York. Soon enough, she crumbles under the exorbitant debt she runs up. Finally, she pretends she indulges in irrational behavior to get out of the sorority and move into affordable accommodation elsewhere on campus.
She falls for a black student who audits her philosophy lectures. After she stalks him for a while, they sleep together. Eventually, she learns that he is married and has left his wife and children.
She drives to Crescent, Utah to meet her dying father. After his death, he bequeaths his money to her, but she decides to give it to his mistress. She buries him to Strykersville, New York, as he requested.