| View Larger Image | We Were the Mulvaneys (Oprah's Book Club)
by Joyce Carol Oates
| | List Price: | $16.00 | | Price: | $10.88 | | You Save: | $5.12 (32%) |  | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours | | | | | Sales Rank: | 38244 | | Studio: | Plume | | | Binding: | Paperback | | Number Of Pages: | 464 | | Publication Date: | December 31, 1969 | | Publisher: | Plume |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Amazon.com
Oprah Book Club® Selection, January 2001: 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 |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.0 based on 475 reviews)
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Not to be missed - a quintessentially American story 
We Were the Mulvaneys tells the story of the Mulvaney family: handsome, successful patriarch Michael Mulvaney Sr., who owns a thriving roofing business and enjoys the friendship and contacts of many of the movers and shakers in small Mt. Ephraim, New York; blue-eyed, lithe, religious Corinne, mother to the Mulvaney clan and avid antique collector; eldest son Mike Jr., a football star at local Mt. Ephraim High School; Patrick, the brainy, analytical son who graduates valedictorian of his high school class and goes on to study on scholarship at Cornell; beautiful Marianne, a cheerleader, devout Christian, and popular student; and little Judd, who, even at his young age, exhibits a precocious charm.
The family lives with a friendly collection of animals - cats, dogs, birds, horses, cows, etc. - at gorgeous High Point Farm, a large estate with attending acreage and outbuildings. The house, painted a dreamy lavendar color (with, of course, a top-of-the-line roof) perches within vew of scenic Mt. Cataract. The family, as Judd (our narrator) will tell us, has a "talent for happiness." They are loved and respected in their community. Everyone knows the Mulvaneys.
But then something horrible happens to one of the Mulvaney clan. And the reader continues in horror as this awful event ripples outward, changing the lives of the happy family forever. Judd, recalling the events as an adult, tries to accurately document the story of the Mulvaneys' fall, their eventual re-discovery of one another, and their "special gift for happiness."
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. The characters are real. They leap off the page. The story is utterly compelling. The book is much about family, and memory, and the evolution of who you are and who you will become. The book is about God and those who believe in him and those who don't. The book is about doing what's expected of you and what is not expected. The book is about shame and public opinion, how others see you and how you see yourself. The book is about claiming your identity, recovering, moving on from tragedy. Though the book only covers a brief span of years, it feels like an epic.
It's long-ish (about 450 pages), but it's worth every minute it takes to read, in my opinion. Read this book. Amazing stuff.
July 24, 2008 | |
Help! I'm drowning... 
Without doubt this must be THE most depressing novel I have read to date. The only words that come to mind to describe this tedious tale are: bleak, grim, dreary, cheerless, desolate, gloomy, dismal, sad, dragging endlessly on!
June 22, 2008 | |
yawns, yawns & more yawns
This sounds like a good one but it's not. The story line is fine but it takes so long to get into! It's over-written almost & too over-descriptive. I keep waiting for something to happen but this book jumps between too many flashbacks & present happenings. I think I will give up & return this to the library. Only on page 63 but this book has "suck" written all over it.
May 13, 2008 | |
Elegant & Heartbreaking Prose 
If you enjoy stories about the complexities of family life, this book is probably one you will like. I've read this years ago and loved it. I believe this is one of JCO's best books although I've come across some readers who do not agree. I immediately joined the Mulvaney clan -- disliking much of what they represented. Loved the relationship between brother & sister. Could not relate to either Mr. or Mrs. Mulvaney although I think I knew from whence they came. As a reader, this book satisfied on all levels & it is highly recommended.
March 23, 2008 | |
Tragic, Moving With The Usual Oates Idiosyncrasies 
As I read the ending of this book, I found myself crying. I enjoyed this novel and found that it was an emotionally wrenching work. Wrenching because of the cruelty of the father toward his daughter and by extension of the mother toward the daughter, who had already been victimized by a rapist.
There are the standard ways that Joyce Carol Oates shows herself. I found it hard to accept that the father especially and the mother in particular could be so profoundly cruel to their own daughter, banishing her for something that could not be her fault. All through the novel, I found that behavior to be unmotivated. That said, each of the characters were quite unique.
One other thing that I saw from "them", another novel by her that I recently read. If you have a sequence of events: A,B,C,D that in reality happened in that order, Oates will tell you about events: A,B,C,D briefly and then she will go back and fill in event B even thought she moved ahead of that. So, you have to accept those Oatesian discontinuity.
Ultimately, I cried at the end. It moved me.
March 01, 2008 | |
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