Four Summers (Critical Overview)

Critical Overview

The reviews for The Wheel of Love were good, though some reviewers had reservations. Writing for Publishers Weekly, Barbara Bannon is effusive in her praise, claiming The Wheel of Love "May well be Joyce Carol Oates's finest collection of short stories yet the effects on the reader are apt to linger long after he has finished the individual stories." A reviewer for Kirkus Reviews writes, "These rich, intent stories have the supra-reality of the bleak hours before dawn as Miss Oates' characters, taut with awareness, suffer the last turn on the wheel of love." In a somewhat mixed review for The New York Times Book Review, Richard Gilman calls "Four Summers" one of the best stories in the collection, remarking that it "create[s] a verbal excitement, a sense of language used not for the expression of previously attained insights or perceptions but for new imaginative reality."

Academic critics are paying increasing attention to Oates's work as well. For example, in her essay "Joyce Carol Oates's Craftsmanship in 'The Wheel of Love,"' appearing in Studies in Short Fiction, Joanne V. Creighton makes connections between Oates's narrative techniques and the content of her stories, suggesting that Oates's stories fail as often as they succeed. Creighton argues, "The characters of the collection offer a dismal view of the human being's incapacity to enjoy a healthy and wholesome emotional life." In his study Understanding Joyce Carol Oates, Greg Johnson notes that The Wheel of Love contains a mix of traditional and experimental stories. Johnson writes, "Oates displays the impressive range of fictional technique and subject matter that characterizes all her short story volumes." Johnson praises Oates's ability to "manipulate formal conventions in order to revitalize the genre."

Compare & Contrast

• 1960s: Race riots consumed major American cities such as Los Angeles, Detroit, and Newark as African Americans protested economic and political exploitation and police harassment.
  Today: Most Americans see racial conflict and division as major social issues, though the number of violent protests has considerably diminished.
• 1960s: Television quiz shows such as Play Your Hunch, Concentration, Truth or Consequences, and The Face is Familiar appeal to working- and middle-class American fantasies of easy riches.
  Today: Television quiz shows such as Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, The Weakest Link, and The Chair appeal to working- and middle-class American fantasies of easy riches.
• 1960s: The minimum wage for Americans is $1.00.
  Today: The minimum wage for Americans in 2002 is $5.15.