We Were the Mulvaneys - Softcover

Oates, Joyce Carol

Softcover

ISBN 10: 184115699X ISBN 13: 9781841156996

Publisher: Fourth Estate, 2001

Synopsis

We Were the Mulvaneys

About this title

Review

A happy family, the Mulvaneys. After decades of marriage, Mom and Dad are still in love--and the proud parents of a brood of youngsters that includes a star athlete, a class valedictorian, and a popular cheerleader. Home is an idyllic place called High Point Farm. And the bonds of attachment within this all-American clan do seem both deep and unconditional: "Mom paused again, drawing in her breath sharply, her eyes suffused with a special lustre, gazing upon her family one by one, with what crazy unbounded love she gazed upon us, and at such a moment my heart would contract as if this woman who was my mother had slipped her fingers inside my rib cage to contain it, as you might hold a wild, thrashing bird to comfort it."

But as we all know, Eden can't last forever. And in the hands of Joyce Carol Oates, who's chronicled just about every variety of familial dysfunction, you know the fall from grace is going to be a doozy. By the time all is said and done, a rape occurs, a daughter is exiled, much alcohol is consumed, and the farm is lost. Even to recount these events in retrospect is a trial for the Mulvaney offspring, one of whom declares: "When I say this is a hard reckoning I mean it's been like squeezing thick drops of blood from my veins." In the hands of a lesser writer, this could be the stuff of a bad television movie. But this is Oates's 26th novel, and by now she knows her material and her craft to perfection. We Were the Mulvaneys is populated with such richly observed and complex characters that we can't help but care about them, even as we wait for disaster to strike them down. --Anita Urquhart

About the Author

Joyce Carol Oates is a novelist, critic, playwright, poet and author of short stories and is one of America's most highly respected literary figures. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Princeton University. Her most recent novel, `The Gravedigger's Daughter', was published in 2007.

About this edition

• Publisher: Fourth Estate
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 184115699X
• ISBN 13: 9781841156996
• Binding: Paperback