Review of Joyce Oates's Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? (2024)

Author Info:

"Can'tcha read it?" He opened the door very carefully, as if he were afraid it might fall off. He slid out just as carefully, planting his feet firmly on the ground, the tiny metallic world in his glasses slowing down like gelatine hardening, and in the midst of it Connie's bright green blouse. "This here is my name, to begin with, he said. ARNOLD FRIEND was written in tarlike black letters on the side, with a drawing of a round, grinning face that reminded Connie of a pumpkin, except it wore sunglasses. "I wanta introduce myself, I'm Arnold Friend and that's my real name and I'm gonna be your friend, honey, and inside the car's Ellie Oscar, he's kinda shy." Ellie brought his transistor radio up to his shoulder and balanced it there. "Now, these numbers are a secret code, honey," Arnold Friend explained. He read off the numbers 33, 19, 17 and raised his eyebrows at her to see what she thought of that, but she didn't think much of it. The left rear fender had been smashed and around it was written, on the gleaming gold background: DONE BY CRAZY WOMAN DRIVER. Connie had to laugh at that. Arnold Friend was pleased at her laughter and looked up at her. "Around the other side's a lot more —you wanta come and see them?"

This Arnold Friend somehow knows all about her, from her name to the fact she’s stayed home alone, even down to what her family is eating at the party. And in a constant patter he cajoles Connie to go for a ride. The encounter grows ever darker and “Friend” more threatening until, finally, she agrees to go.

On finishing the story I found Connie’s behavior so inexplicable that it diminished the admitted hypnotic power of the telling. But then I did some research and, lo and behold, Ms Oates’s source material is a true crime story–The Pied Piper of Tucson (Don Moser, March 4, 1966, Life Magazine)--about a serial killer just as peculiar as Arnold Friend and of the young people who went along with him, not just those who went to their deaths but those who knew about the killings:

One disclosure, however, has most disturbing implications: Smitty’s boasts may have been heard not just by Bruns and his other intimates, but by other teenagers as well. Howmany—and precisely how much they knew—it remains impossible to say. One authoritativesource, however, having listened to the admissions of six high school students, says theyunquestionably knew enough so that they should have gone to the police—but were either afraid to talk, or didn’t want to rock the boat. As for Smitty’s friends, the thought of telling the police never entered their minds.
“I didn’t know he killed her,” said one, “and even if I had, I wouldn’t have said anything. Iwouldn’t want to be a fink.”

Given this background and the spooky manner in which Ms Oates fictionalizes it, you can see why it’s her most anthologized and analyzed piece of work. The power of persuasion Friend uses to manipulate Connie readily lends itself to the supernatural reading some have given the story and brings it, at least, to the brink of horror. Color me surprised, maybe even humbled.

(Reviewed:02-Jun-24)

Grade: (B+)

Short Stories

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Oates has described her many stories and novels as “tributaries flowing into a single river”; so it is not surprising that “Where Are You Going” should contain many elements that have been characteristic in her work, including the blurring of realism and the supernatural, and the effort to bear witness “for those who can’t speak for themselves.”1 The story also takes up troubling subjects that have continued to occupy her in her fiction: the romantic longings and limited options of adolescents, especially girls; the sexual victimization of women; the psychology of serial killers; and the American obsession with violence.

-FILMOGRAPHY: Joyce Carol Oates (IMDB)
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-FILMOGRAPHY: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? (2017) (IMDB)
-FILM: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?: Screenplay / Produced / Directed / Edited by: Jacob Turrentine (Vimeo)

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