Arrived today from Better World Books. Used, a bit worn.

I first read this several years ago. I remember being affected by the feelings of young Iris Courtney. I felt that Oates expressed the feelings many children have, of being left out, for different reasons. I identified with some of those feelings.

I didn't as much get that feeling this time around. However, I found something different.

Iris is a loner from the wrong side of the tracks. She is about 12 when her story begins here, a good student but not a "participant". She has self-absorbed parents: Persia, whose beauty has taken her places, and Duke, whose charm has slid him by some difficulties. Iris is a bit of a dreamer, too. I identified with her aloneness, her ability to entertain herself and to imagine a different life.

Her life changes dramatically a few years later, when she is linked with Jinx Fairchild, a popular black boy, through a tragic incident. The link is known only to the two of them, because of the nature of the incident and because of the racism inherent in the population of the town.

Their shared experience follows them both through the years and into adulthood, and affects almost everything they choose to do in their lives, whether consciously or not. It was this effect, and the more pervasive effects of fundamental institutionalized racism, that follow them both unrelentingly.

Inside the box.