Product Description

The unforgettable story of the rise, fall and ultimate redemption of an American family. The Mulvaneys are seemingly blessed by everything that makes life sweet. They live together in the picture-perfect High Point Farm, just outside the community of Mt Ephraim, New York, where they are respected and liked by everybody. Yet something happens on Valentine's Day 1976. An incident involving Marianne Mulvaney, the pretty sixteen-year-old daughter, is hushed up in the town and never discussed within the family. The impact of this event reverberates throughout the lives of the characters. As told by Judd, years later, in an attempt to make sense of his own past reveals the unspoken truths of that night that rends the fabric of the family life with tragic consequences. In 'We Were the Mulvaneys', Joyce Carol Oates, the highly acclaimed author of 'Blonde', masterfully weaves an unforgettable story of the rise, fall and ultimate redemption of an American family.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #68942 in Books
• Published on: 2001-07-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 464 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Joyce Carol Oates' We Were the Mulvaneys is the story of a happy family. After decades of marriage, Mum and Dad are still in love--and the proud parents of a brood of youngsters, which 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 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 memorable. 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 made-for-tv film but this is Oates' 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 you can't help but care about them, even as you wait for disaster to strike them down. --Anita Urquhart, Amazon.com

Review
'I read this book over a year ago, but this family still haunts me.' Oprah Winfrey '"We Were the Mulvaneys" works not simply because of its meticulous details and gestures!What keeps us coming back to Oates Country is something stronger and spookier: her uncanny gift of making the page a window, with something on the other side that we'd swear was life itself.' The New York Times Book Review 'It is a book that will break your heart, heal it, then break it again every time you think about it.' Los Angeles Times 'A brilliantly detailed and varied picture of family life and a succession of dramatic set pieces!These are people we recognise, and she makes us care deeply about them.' Kirkuss Prasie for 'Blonde': 'A torrentially imaginative, compulsively readable tour de force.' Sunday Telegraph 'A mighty -- and a mesmerising -- book.' Elaine Showalter, Literary Review 'If you haven't read Joyce Carol Oates before, start here, and now.' Julie Myerson, Independent

Los Angeles Times
'It is a book that will break your heart, heal it, then break it again every time you think about it.'

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Customer Reviews

A hard lesson in growing up
The core of the plot in this novel is around the reaction of a family to the rape of their idolised daughter. However, what I really took out of the book is not how to cope with a specific catastrophe, but the importance of inner strength compared to people who rely on external validation to make them feel good about who they are. The degeneration of the father is centred around his perception of what his family think of him, his clients and the various people of the town. His daughter, while somewhat supported internally by her own faith also appears to measure herself through external recognition, while feeling uncomfortable with it at the same time. The catalyst of her rape flings the characters apart, in some instances across the country and while there is more focus on some family members than others, the theme for all is the same in that they avoid a reconciliation with each other until they have come to terms with themselves and formed their own roots away from the central unit.

The lesson they are learning is that the family of one's childhood is never a permanent fixture and that growing away from it is an essential part of truly growing up. The wonderfully strong character of Corinne Mulvaney, the mother of the family, is fortunately the character that her children have inherited and while sometimes they lose their way on the journey, all 4 children are able to leave and develop the various next generations of Mulvaney.

The family is completely different at the close of the novel, but fundamentally intact as, with the exception of Michael Mulvaney Sr, they are all people who have learned to love and appreciate themselves for who they are before returning to the family unit to share their experiences and ensure that the whole is indeed greater than the sum of its parts.

One note on this edition - the editing is slack, with some grammar and spelling errors, plus some continuity issues in the detail.

I was not disappointed by this book
Part way through this book I wondered how any of these realistic characters would survive. It struck me that maybe we all wish our family could stay as it is in our memories, but sometimes outside circumstances change it. The book tells the story of not only the family's struggle to survive as a whole but each character in that family as well. I was not disappointed by this book at all. It is a lovely, satisfying story.

A book that will touch your heart!
I bought this book on a recent trip, and I'm so glad that I did. I have never read a book that moved me so much, I could really feel for this poor family. Usually, I find it hard to absorb myself in a book, before I've read the first 100 pages but this time, I couldnt put it down from the very beginning.

The book brought home to me how vulnerable we all are, that we could all fall victim to an event that would destroy our lives as we know them. The rape of Marianne Mulvaney, changed the lives of all the characters in a different way, they all were all vastly changed people as the novel concluded to the way they were at the beginning, it highlighted the way a single event can change the entire attitudes and thinking of a whole family.

Marianne was not the only victim of the rape, her parents were and also her three brothers, and it destroyed them as a family. A family who had "everything", and were greatly admired in the community of Mount Ephraim, were suddenly outcasts, in financial difficulty and fighting amongst themselves. Their whole lives changed for the worst...

I would recommend this book to anyone, in fact I already have. It shows that however deep problems go, eventually they'll sort themselves out. The Mulvaney family will never be far from my thoughts.