 First edition | |
| Author | Richard Price |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Dramedy Coming of age |
| Publisher | Houghton Mifflin, Boston |
Publication date | 1974 |
| Media type | Print (hard cover) |
| Pages | 239 pages |
| ISBN | 0-395-18477-0 |
| Followed by | Bloodbrothers |
The Wanderers is a novel by the American author Richard Price. It was first published as a book in 1974. The plot is set in the Bronx, New York City, from mid-1962 to mid-1963. [1]
Price was 24 years old when The Wanderers, was published. It was his first novel, and the setting of the story is a housing project in the Bronx, New York, which is similar to that in which Price grew up.
The book contains 12 chapters, which are loosely connected with each other, mainly by reappearing characters. It is more like a collection of short stories—each chapter can stand on its own. A conventional encompassing plot is missing. However, there is a thread: the protagonists are forced to mature, each one in his own way, toward the end of the book.
Parts of the book were published as the story "Big Playground" in Antaeus, New York City, in 1972. [2]
Regarding the year(s) in which the story takes place there is an inconsistency. In the first chapter, it reads 12 September 1962. [3] In chapter 5, Thanksgiving [4] and 27 November 1962 [5] are explicitly mentioned, as well as Valentine's Day in one of the following chapters. Then, in chapter 11, it reads 1 June 1962 on the wedding invitation given out by Buddy Borsalino. [6] It might be an author's inaccuracy or a misprint.
The Wanderers was first published at Houghton Mifflin, Boston, Massachusetts, USA in 1974. Reprints and publications at other publishers followed, such as:
Richie Gennaro is the 17-year-old leader of the Wanderers, an Italian-American youth gang in the Bronx in 1962. His girlfriend is Denise Rizzo. Richie's friends in the Wanderers are Joey Capra, Buddy Borsalino, Eugene Caputo and Perry LaGuardia.
At the beginning of the book, a broad range of events and characters describe the zeitgeist. In addition to the protagonists, many characters appear only once. At first, “gang-business” is in focus: rivalry with other gangs in the neighborhood who come from different cultural and/or ethnic backgrounds. This rivalry is determined by prejudice and machismo. But there is also competition, in terms of sports such as football and bowling. And above all, it is about being cool and trying to have sex for the first time.
Toward the end of the book, the events focus more and more on the protagonists and their problems and challenges of growing up – everyone in his own way. Eugene joins the marines after watching, without interfering, his girlfriend, Nina, being raped. Perry's father had died several years ago; now his mother dies, and he's suddenly on his own. Living with his aunt in Trenton, New Jersey, becomes unbearable for him, so he decides to go to Boston and sail to sea. After the situation escalates, Joey flees from his violent father and joins Perry. And Buddy impregnates his girlfriend, Despie, on their very first date and has to face the challenges of being a 17-year-old husband and father.
The serious side of life is catching up, the gang is falling apart, and Richie is staying behind.
The Wanderers received mostly positive reviews. [7] Kirkus Reviews called the book "a fine first novel — gritty, incisive, unpatronizing, authentic in its detail, able to recreate a dead era and deal with the American male myth (city-style) while somehow managing miraculously to avoid both pomposity and sentimentality." [8] New York called it "a powerhouse," writing that "the book is raunchy, violent, tender, cruel, and laugh-your-ass-off funny." [9]
The Wanderers was filmed in 1979 by Philip Kaufman. The first Avon Books printing from February 1975 refers to the upcoming movie ("SOON A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE"). [10] The artwork of the title on the front cover of the same book may have been the inspiration for the 'Wanderers logo' on the back of the uniform jackets in the film.
The major differences between book and film are Despie is Richie's girlfriend and made Chubby's daughter, Buddy is made a minor character, Eugene and C are nonexistent, Nina becomes Joey's love interest and Nina's rape never occurs. Instead, she kisses Richie in the back of his car, becoming his main love interest which betrays Joey. However disappointed with all their boys lifestyles, Richie sees her "disappear" and becoming more interested and heading into a higher spiritual road along the intellectual Youth Force that will lead the 1960s away from the 1950s in which his gang were still lingering, and way ahead incomprehensible for him at the verge of settling into a married man life. Witnessing the assassination of President Kennedy on a store-window TV set made him realize that change was spinning and speeding up in the nation as a whole, as well as in him and his peers as they transitioned from teens to young adults.
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