O: Joyce Carol Oates & FOXFIRE

This month, I'm doing the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. My theme: authors whose work I read when I was younger.

"Any kind of creative activity is likely to be stressful. The more anxiety, the more you feel that you are headed in the right direction. Easiness, relaxation, comfort- these are not conditions that usually accompany serious work." - Joyce Carol Oates

FOXFIRE (Dutton, Adult)  is the first novel I read by Joyce Carol Oates, and it's one of the darker stories I'm sharing here this month. The story takes place during the 1950s in upstate New York. One of the first scenes depicts a junior high girl named Rita who is lured by her younger brothers to a clubhouse built by older neighborhood boys. Once inside, it's implied that Rita is gang raped. She returns home alone, bleeding and crying. Her mother takes a look at her and slaps her, refusing to hear about what has just happened. Rita goes on to join Foxfire, a girl gang led by a charismatic girl named Legs. Later, when a male teacher fondles Rita during detention, the Foxfire girls vandalize his car and call him out for his behavior. The teacher soon retires.

The story is told from the perspective of Maddy, another Foxfire member. Maddy wants a typewriter. While bargaining with a man to sell her the typewriter that he intends to throw away, the man tries to sexually assault Maddy. Maddy tells the Foxfire girls about what happened and then she returns to this guy. While he undresses, the girls emerge. They beat him until he passes out. Maddy leaves some money behind and then snatches the typewriter. 

Told with a gritty honesty, FOXFIRE challenges the 1950s as being a gentler time when parents were thought to be more nurturing, families were more solid, and girls were more docile and safe from sexual assault. Reading this book also made me think of Lois Duncan's DAUGHTERS OF EVE, though I'd say that FOXFIRE is darker with much more sexually explicit language and content. Interestingly, I found this book in the MG section of a library when I was a teen. It is currently marketed as adult fiction, though it could also be considered YA. But a MG book this is not. 

Have you read FOXFIRE?  What do you think about when you think of the 1950s?
Have you ever strongly felt that a book's intended age group has been wrongly classified?