[1] Many years and many awards later, Oates surmised that them and Blonde (2000) were the works she will most be remembered for, and would most want a new reader to select, though she added that "I could as easily have chosen a number of titles.

The main character, "Maureen Wendall," contacted Oates by mail after she had failed a college course taught by the author, and these letters are included (presumably verbatim) in the novel, about two-thirds of the way through the text.

Saying that "the novel practically wrote itself," Oates organized the story and recast it as fiction, but at certain points she revised the text to include "Maureen Wendall's" words verbatim.

Oates noted that, rather than sensationalizing the story of the Wendalls to make slum life more lurid, she softened some sections so that they would not overwhelm the reader.

The story begins with Loretta Botsford and her brother Brock as teenagers, living in the 1930s in a "fair-sized city on a midwestern canal".

Jules as a child displays a fascination with fire when he burns down a deserted barn, and when a plane crashes in Detroit.

Jules takes on the role of the "bad boy" who hangs out with kids who steal from stores and smoke at school.

She gradually recovers with the care of Loretta's brother Brock, who has unexpectedly returned, and the letters of Jules, who slowly drifts back North from Texas.

Later, Jules visits Maureen, who has isolated herself from the rest of her family in Dearborn, Michigan with her husband and is expecting a child.

Loretta has lost track of her children, and Maureen takes the final step toward removing herself from the old family by rejecting her own brother.

"[5] Susan Koppelman Cornillon wrote that "one is uncertain, while reading the works of Miss Oates, whether or not she does, in fact, separate her own attitudes and opinions on the issue of sex role from her characters."

[6] George Vecsey made a reference to the novel in his critique of baseball fans in 1985: "I pointed ahead on Michigan Avenue to the old battleship-gray ballpark and said, 'Them,' in the Joyce Carol Oates sense of the word.