Wild oats

By James Oppenheim

In New York's Lower East Side, spring brings more than a change of season: it awakens desires that social convention has left dangerously unexamined. Seventeen-year-old Edith Kroll works to support her sick mother, carrying family responsibility while confronting the uncertainties of adolescence, poverty and adult relationships. Her moral seriousness places her in sharp contrast with Frank Lasser, a travelling salesman whose cynical sexual attitudes are challenged by her innocence. Their developing relationship creates a charged conflict between desire and conscience, shaped by the unequal standards imposed upon men and women. Around Edith, tenement life and garment labour reveal the economic pressures that narrow personal choices and bind private decisions to family survival. Questions of marriage, motherhood and sexual knowledge emerge not as abstractions, but through the lives of working people in an immigrant neighbourhood where ignorance can carry lasting social consequences. Structured as a foreword followed by eighteen chapters, the novel uses recurring images of spring and natural vitality to trace personal and sexual transformation. Its coming-of-age focus is inseparable from the realities of labour, class and obligation, while Edith's position as a teenage working woman gives the central tension particular force. The narrative examines how innocence meets experience in a society that judges the sexes differently, and how awakening can unsettle both intimate relationships and established expectations. This book was out of print for decades and is now republished by Alpha Editions. It has been restored for today's and future generations. This edition is not just a reprint - it's a collector's item and a cultural treasure.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 9377788595
• ISBN13: 9789377788599
• Release Date: December 2026
• Publisher: Alpha Edition
• Length: 130 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"