We Were the Mulvaneys

Joyce Carol Oates

ISBN 10: 0525942238 / ISBN 13: 9780525942238

Published by Dutton, 1996

About this Item

Grey paper-covered boards with blue backstrip and silver lettering. Signed and inscribed by the author on the title page, thumb smudge (probably also the author's) Text is otherwise clean and white, no marks. Unclipped DJ with $24.95 price shows a hint of edgewear. "The Mulvaneys, seemingly blessed by everything that makes life sweet. Yet something happens on Valentine's Day, 1976 - an incident involving sixteen-year-old Marianne that is hushed up in the town and never spoken of in the Mulvaney home - that causes the bottom to fall out of their world." (from the jacket).

Seller Inventory # A111416

Bibliographic Details

• Title: We Were the Mulvaneys
• Publisher: Dutton
• Publication Date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0525942238
• ISBN 13: 9780525942238
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • Fiction/General

About this title

Synopsis

The Mulvaneys, at first a close and very lucky family, drift apart over the years, until the youngest son, Judd, discovers the secret of their downfall and sets out to help reunite the family

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