We Were the Mulvaneys

Paul Bryant

Rating: really liked it
Six months after the death of Joyce Carol Oates a couple of her fans will visit her grave. Just underneath the keening mournful almost-Canadian wind as they stand by the graveside they will hear to their consternation a little tiptappy scratching noise. From underground. They will run run run to get the caretaker who will get the police who will get the bigger police. They'll all hear the sound. Tippytappy, scritchscratch. They'll hum and haw, and then they'll exhume the body. When they crack open the coffin next to JCO's earthly remains they'll find a neat 600 page typescript of the new novel. It will be Joyce's 53rd. Oh, what's that you say? Her 54th - they found another one in the boot of a car she used to drive - and it's another masterpiece you say?

Yes, JCO is the Vacuum Monster of contemporary lit - you remember, the one in the Beatles' merry psychedelic cartoon Yellow Submarine - whatever he sees - SLURP - it's gone, vacuumed into nothingness. JCO does the same except when she SLURPS up something, in its place there appears another neat 600 page typescript. Joyce sees Marilyn - SLURP - "Blonde" - turns on the tv and clocks Jeffrey Dahmer - SLURP - "Zombie". I read a review once and the reviewer was imagining that inside the copy of his JCO novel there was a handwritten note which said STOP ME BEFORE I WRITE AGAIN.
Having said all that - is she any good? Well, alas for you authors who cough out one 200 page novel every ten years, the answer is yes, sometimes, but "We Were the Mulvaneys" isn't the one to convince anybody - that would be "What I Lived For" which is a stone masterpiece. This whopping Mulvaney book promises much and for the first 250 pages is compulsive, propulsive, and then like a toy balloon you blew up and tried to tie but your fingers fumbled and whoosshhhh it zaps away from you and spirals and biffs and thwaps into every wall and every corner of the room and finally peters out and dies into someone's cup of coffee, this novel just seems to get away from its author - she writes and writes and writes about the four Mulvaney kids and their two parents and in the end it was all very herkyjerky and exactly where JCO should have shone her fearless psychological searchlight was exactly where she appeared to shy away from - i.e.

(***BIG FAT SPOILER***)

the father's rejection of his beloved daughter after the daughter is raped - date-raped to be precise. Now why would he do such a thing? And why would his good Christian-hearted wife put up with him doing such a thing, and actually go along with it and not see her daughter when it broke her heart? JCO loves to get into her character's heads and does so very well, but here - right here at the sore spot of the whole book, the axis around which the fate of the family revolved, the point at which their ascent turns to descent - here is where she backs off, never an explanation of this central appalling cruelty. This may be very intentional but if so the intention was lost on me. And because of this, as I realised we were never going to explore this painful area, and that the novel, like its characters, was going to tippytoe away from it, I got mardy and disgruntled and I began not to care. When I got to the five page description of the final illness of Muffin the cat (a cat, not a cool person with catlike powers) my lack of gruntle was turning into outright mockery. Five pages about this cat's kidney problems and no pages about why the father can't stand to look at his daughter after she's raped. I think Joyce lost the plot.
Four stars for pages 1-250ish, two generous stars for pages 250ish to 454.

Glenn Sumi

Rating: really liked it
Okay, I finally GET Joyce Carol Oates

Thanks to Goodreads, I stuck with this novel, one of the prolific Joyce Carol Oates’s best-known and –loved books. (Hey, it’s even Oprah Book Club-approved!) Some people on here said it picked up around the 100-page mark, and – wouldn’t you know it? – they were right.

I’m glad I listened to y’all. It takes a while for the book to find its way. So many character introductions! So many coy digressions! Do we really need to know about all the family nicknames and pets?! But once it gets going, it’s quite gripping, both plot-wise and psychologically.

The past tense in the title hints at the book’s outcome. In some ways it’s about the decline and fall of a once prosperous, well-loved upstate New York family. One event that happens on Valentine’s Day in 1976 affects each of the six Mulvaneys differently, and this book, narrated mostly by the youngest child, Judd, tells the sad, sad story.

I won’t reveal the event, although it’s hinted at early on and it’s easy enough to figure out. But it literally divides the family: from the community (there’s legal action, shunning), and perhaps more tragically, from themselves.

A father denies his favourite child, and the devout mother unquestioningly goes along with it; the other children react by leaving or messing up; careers and ambitions are thwarted; a plan to execute retribution is hatched, further dividing the family; and, as lives are ruined or put on hold and the scars of the past refuse to heal, nobody talks about “it” – the unmentionable “event.”

Oates is working on a large canvas here. There are several biblical and mythical allusions; and much of the book has the inexorable feel of a Greek Tragedy. The idea of Darwinian evolution is also a big theme. And the book can also be read, quite convincingly, as one of those Death of the American Dream novels. When institutions fail people, you're left with the family unit. The book mostly concerns the subtle interworkings of a large family, from the oft-repeated anecdotes that capture a family member’s character to its big secrets.

As one Mulvaney child says about his family late in the book, “It’s like things are in code and the key’s been lost.”

There are lots of passages that ring true if you’re part of a big(gish) family. Consider this:

They say the youngest kid of a family doesn’t remember himself very clearly because he has learned to rely on the memories of others, who are older and thus possess authority. Where his memory conflicts with theirs, it’s discarded as of little worth. What he believes to be his memory is more accurately described as a rag-bin of others’ memories, their overlapping testimonies of things that happened before he was born, mixed in with things that happened after his birth, including him.

Not all the prose is so insightful. This passage, for instance, cries out for tightening and clarity:

There were those times when the telephone rang, and she could not locate a phone amid the clutter. She rushed, she stumbled – for what if it was Michael Sr., her beloved husband of whom she thought, worried obsessively as the mother of an infant if physically parted from the infant thinks and worries obsessively of the infant even when her mind appears to be fully engaged, if not obsessed, with other matters.

I read that last run-on sentence four times before comprehending it. And in the same paragraph (!) we get:

During these mad dashes to the wall phone in the kitchen she hadn’t time to fall but with fantastical grace and dexterity wrenched herself upright in midfall and continued running (dogs whimpering, yapping hysterically in her wake, cats scattering wide-eyed and plume-tailed) before the telephone ceased its querulous ringing – though frequently she was greeted with nothing more than a derisive dial tone, in any case.

Are editors simply too intimidated by JCO’s output to suggest revisions?

The author also has an annoying habit of repeating phrases in italics, supposedly to suggest subconscious thoughts but too often feeling like a lazy shorthand saying, “Look, look, this is significant!”

Still, I don’t think you read Oates for the line-by-line beauty of her prose.

Late in the novel she gets deep inside the head of the book’s ruined, alcoholic patriarch, and it’s a terrifying, sad and completely convincing section, the best in the book. And when one of the most wounded characters finds herself in a sanctuary (view spoiler)[for wounded animals who have been given a second chance at life (hide spoiler)], the symbolism might seem obvious, but after 400 pages it feels earned.

A lesser writer would have offered up sentimentality, cheesy redemption monologues and copious tears. Oates is after something more complex, more textured, and ultimately more real.

We might think we know who the Mulvaneys are, but they can, like humans everywhere, still surprise us.

Perry

Rating: really liked it
Who doesn't desire his father's death?
Fyodor Dostoevsky

<<2.5 stars>>

I want to write a few words about this novel while it's fresh on my mind instead of moving it to the back of my review line.

A first point would be that Oates could have shown what she wanted to show--the disintegration of a seemingly typical family--in three-hundred pages instead of four-hundred and fifty plus.

Besides its verbosity, the chief problem I had with the novel was that Oates kept trying to make the point that the family's downfall was not due to "any one person's fault." It was no doubt set in motion by the date rape of the daughter by a guy who attended high school with her and one of her three brothers. Yet, to assign no fault to the parents defies reason and truth when the father turned out to be a pathetic jackass for his absolute indifference or at least reckless cruelty to his daughter and the mother a complicit rag-a-muffin, recklessly indifferent to her baby girl.

It was just too much for me to believe the dad's unexplained refusal to have anything to do with his daughter after the rape, and the mom's role in casting the daughter out into the world on dad's behalf, as if the rape was their daughter's fault. I didn't get any indication (despite how much Oates seems to go on and on and on) that the parents believed their daughter was not credible or that she was "asking for" the rape, no matter how illogical such a belief would be.

Daddy Mulvaney is eaten up by resentment, and certainly that isn't unrealistic, as the reader watches him become a cancer to the world around him, including to his family. Most men cannot deal with problems that they cannot fix. And, a high school daughter cannot be "fixed" from the harm she has suffered from a rape. When Daddy realizes this, he is consumed with rage at the boy who raped her, at the boy's family, at the law, at the members of his country club, at everyone.

Mom is Daddy's hick flop who shows no reservations or guilt or shame about the treatment of her daughter.

Last, I found it nearly absurd that a mother would treat household pets and farm animals better and as more important than her own children.

There are simply too many unexplained oddities for the novel to feel true to me.

I hate to say that this novel could lead one to agree with Dostoevsky's rhetorical.

Robin

Rating: really liked it
The Mulvaneys: Gold Medal Winners for Bad Parenting

I've read reviews by those who think this book is "what happens when a horrible event poisons a happy family" or something similar to that. Uh uh. Not quite. This book is all that, PLUS two ferociously bad parents, who stick to their ferociously bad parenting, and learn nothing, all through their journey.

(Forgive me if this review sounds catty, I'm still kinda pissed off.)

The Mulvaneys start off well. Michael Sr is so good looking his vivacious red-headed wife Corinne doesn't always know what he sees in her (aside: why must red-heads always be 'vivacious' or full of energy in some way?? There has GOT to be a lazy, or temperate red head out there in the world. A show of hands??). He starts a roofing business. They buy a farm. People like them. They have a few gorgeous sons, Michael Jr and Patrick, and then a daughter, Marianne, who they love more than anything. Oh and then Judd comes along later and it is he who is sort of telling this story. Sort of, because his narrative voice comes and goes - I was a little bit confused by this, actually.

They're a rowdy, loving bunch, all adorned with nicknames ("Curly", "Pinch", "Button", "Whistle" and the like) and accompanied always by a gaggle of animals.

Then, on prom night, something horrible happens to Marianne. And the sweet little life on the farm goes to shit. But it ain't because of what happened to Marianne. It's the sick-ass parenting of good-lookin Michael and feisty Corinne that screws everything up. I mean, they couldn't have reacted in a worse possible way. They ship off their victimized daughter, they exclude her and ignore her for YEARS, leaving her to fend for herself, to find a place of belonging somewhere else, because it sure as heck wasn't at home. Michael drinks; Corinne puts her red, spiritual head in the sand. And everyone around them gets screwed up, royally.

This is the first book I've read by Joyce Carol Oates. I overlooked the "Oprah's Pick" sticker and went for it. Maybe I should have trusted my initial instinct. Because not only is the plot rather off-putting, but this book is so much longer than it needed to be. There's so much unnecessary detailing, that I found my eyes sliding over entire paragraphs pertaining to one of the family cats' habits, or yet another romanticised memory of the family, pre-incident. I wasn't interested in the cats, and I wasn't interested in romanticising a family parented by these two numbskulls.

And, that's all I gotta say about that. ;)

Helene Jeppesen

Rating: really liked it
Sometimes, when reviewing a book, it's easier to explain the experience you had while reading it - so that's what I'm going to do with "We Were the Mulvaneys".
This is a family saga that spans over several years. At first, the dense language made me feel like there was a ditch between me and the story. I had to get used to the prose, and I did so surprisingly fast; however, I still noticed the dense language every time I picked up the book, and if I was tired and just wanted to read to relax, I had to convince myself to keep on reading.
Which means that while I was reading this novel, I didn't think that I was reading a 5-star book. That IS the case, however, now that I look back on it. Because "We Were the Mulvaneys" is simply too epic a tragic family story to not be a 5-star read. It's one of those books that I know will stay with me for months to come; especially because of the members of this family...
Rarely have I come across a set of characters that I was so engaged in as I was with the Mulvaneys. Michael Sr., Corinne, Mike Jr., Patrick, Marianne, Judd - their names are tattooed to my brain and I feel like I'm now part of their family because I've been following them so well. Especially Corinne turned into one of those fictional personnages that is and will rest very close to my heart. Furthermore, the long years that we get to follow them come with engaging anecdotes - and when those anecdotes are referenced back to several hundred pages later, you get the feeling that this is a JOURNEY (with capital letters) you've been on - I liked that feeling.
This is my review of "We Were the Mulvaneys". I haven't touched at all upon the plot; only on my feelings. I hope you can use this in some ways, because sometimes what you remember from a book is how you felt while you were reading it - not much of the actual plot itself (which I do remember vividly as well, but I want for YOU to experience it for yourself). Good luck, and say hi to the Mulvaneys from me when you encounter them!

Anna

Rating: really liked it
This book is about a large family, the Mulvaneys, living all happily and blahblahblah until something terrible happens to the sole daughter. Although the book is basically about this event and the aftermath, it takes about 100 pages to actually get to the plot. The beginning of the book goes on about the Mulvaneys and how wonderful they were, describing their house and its inhabitants with a little too much detail. Most chapters had this basic formula: Narraration of some memory a character had/an extensive description of what the Mulvaneys ate for breakfast or something + finally going back to the present in the last few paragraphs. I wanted desperately to give up reading this book and perhaps find something more fast paced, but after reading 100 or so pages to get to the plot, it would feel like I wasted all those days.

Despite the extensive explanations of the Mulvaney family, and what I thought were undeveloped characters (the narrarator, youngest sibling Judd, was always stressing how purehearted and "good-Christian" his sister Marianne was. Marianne was really a little too good and delicate and pure for a human being), the author's writing style was excellent. Unfortunately, the story line was not.

Ted

Rating: really liked it
[You still have time to go back! Otherwise proceed to the following at My Writing … https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...
(hide spoiler)]

Fabian

Rating: really liked it
4 Reasons "We Were the Mulvaneys" was one true deep disappointment:

1) I had already given J.C.O.s my full endorsement after reading "Zombie", a speedier version of "American Psycho" and "The Tattooed Girl", also a speedy version, this time of something long and droll by the likes of Roth. This is a sad disaster. I take everything I said about her back & now I realize why some people stopped being fans altogether.

2) Speaking of speed- this "family saga", which is more like some episode in a lame, average, overly-self-conscious family's life, and the aftereffects of said episode (which--can you believe it? are BAD) is unnecessarily l-o-o-o-n-g.

[Don't also:] Read: "The Little Friend" by Donna Tartt. This much time invested in something should reap benefits, no?

3) I am ashamed to be seen reading anything baring the "Oprah's Book Club" stamp, but I must say that I am never truly deeply disappointed by the selections. (Some do manage to achieve classic status.) Until now. (Is this the very reason the club dismantled and lost the cred????)

4) You read a book to reach its conclusion, and the author's brave effort to astound is plainly seen. This book is skimmed at the end, when J.C.O. seems to be thinking about her paycheck* alone and useless detail is piled upon nonsensical minutiae, so so much--you just f###ing want to finish the f###ing thing! (Excuse a reader's blatant frustration)

I guess I will be more careful with my selections from now on. Yes, I still consider J.C.O. an author (prolific--if anything) who truly grabs my attention. I'm a sucker for a story, and when it gets going not even a considerably awful hypothetical slap to the audience by a too-cocky, too-disappointing writer can make me stop reading it altogether.

*ALSO, I WANT TO ADD THAT I WANT TO RESCIND MY PREVIOUS OPINION ABOUT J.C.O. AFTER "BLONDE", SHE CANNOT DO A SINGLE THING WRONG.

Sammy

Rating: really liked it
By the end of this book I was crying. I just want to start with that and get it cleared out of the way. It wasn't just a sniff and the threat of tears, I had actual tears running down my face and snot streaming out of my nose. I was leaking enough that I actually had to put the book down and go grab some tissues.

This book is very emotional, not just with how it makes the reader feel, but with how it's written. There was something unique about Oates writing that reflected a purely emotional connection. The way sentences and phrases were repeated was reminescent of the speech of someone in a highly emotional state. It reminded me of when I am very angry or upset and am trying to convey something towards the source of my anger/sadness/passion and I feel the need to repeat what I find so important, even if it's really a minor issue. That was how Oates writing felt a lot of the times. It's probably why I found myself getting upset, frustrated, curious, or sad, because she wrote in a way to help push those emotions to the front.

Of course the subject matter really increased my emotions. The things this family went through and how they dealt with is enough to break your heart just hearing about it, let alone suddenly becoming very involved. All the characters are sympathetic, even Michael Sr., who is pretty easy to hate. Everyone we encounter is flawed and real and that makes you feel for them so much more. Of course the one you feel for the most is Marianne, the true victim in all of this. Yet, somehow she manages to move on with her life and become the strongest of all the Mulvaneys. She's filled with hope and love and the fact she maintains that after her rape and then the odd rejection of her family is truly amazing.

The last part of the book and the ending was very bittersweet. As much as you want to be happy you can't help feeling something is just not letting you achieve that. It's probably the same thing the Mulvaneys are feeling by the end. Somehow we've become the Mulvaneys by just a few chapters into the book, so truly whatever they're feeling, you're now feeling. That just got you all the more involved in the book, because of course you want to know everything that happens and why. It also makes the book that much harder to put down.

I've read Foxfire and want to reread it now, but I remember it's tone and style being extremely different from We Were the Mulvaneys. I haven't read any of Oates other works, though. Do they all vary from each other? Do they live up to the greatness of We Were the Mulvaneys? Should I try out her other works, or am I just destined to be disappointed after this book? I would love to hear your opinions on Oates other works as well as what you thought of We Were the Mulvaneys. Did y'all enjoy it as much as I did and have it affect you like it did me? Please share.

To sum it all up, I think the Los Angeles Times Book Review says it best: "Will break your heart, heal it, then break it again."

Clare

Rating: really liked it
I really needed Joyce Carol Oates to give me a break on this one. I was still reeling from the horrible experience I had of accidentally reading part of "Zombie" but I was prepared to try to forgive her. But even though no one in this book gave anyone else an ice-pick lobotomy, it was entirely devoid of any heart, hope, or mercy. I just don't need this in my life - there's nothing about this book stylistically that elevates it above its oppressively miserable story.

emma

Rating: really liked it
i decided i wanted to read this book and then the VERY NEXT DAY found a copy of it in the VERY HOME i was in.

pretty serendipitous, no?

Kinga

Rating: really liked it
One thing for sure – Oates can write. Her Twitter antics might convince you she is not a serious writer, but she is.

We Were The Mulvaneys is a juicy novel with quite a selection of antiheroes that creep up on you slowly, and you’re not sure when exactly you started hating them.

The Mulvaneys are the golden family which gets undone by their own misogyny, bigotry and weakness of character. The biggest asshat, of course, is the father, who believes that the offense done to his daughter was done to him really by proxy. It was an attack on him, something was taken away from him. The community whose respect he tried to earn so hard committed the ultimate act betrayal and disrespect. Like so many backwards fathers, he thinks his daughter’s virginity belongs to him. So any crime committed against her is actually committed against him and his property. The father’s unhealthy obsession with female virginity can be noticed very early on, when he is courting his future wife.

The novel is so psychologically intricate – Oates documents all the little things, the minute failures in communication that build up until everything reaches the point of no return. I particularly enjoyed the description of how the family communicates through their pets in a way of avoiding having difficult conversations. The daughter’s only act of rebellion noted was this one time when she broke from this established form of communication and snapped at her mother. It was such a small thing, but it left ripples. As a person with an easy access to her store of anger and rage, I found the mother’s and daughter’s inability to get angry perplexing and frustrating, but possibly, understandable in its context.

It was also interesting how the whole family, the parents especially, believed their own hype of being this picture perfect unit, the embodiment of the American dream, whereas to this reader they didn’t seem that special to begin with, therefore their downfall wasn’t as surprising as it was to them. When the reality started contradicting their own image they built in their heads, well, that’s too bad for reality. We never actually see the family through any outsider’s eyes, so we have no idea if their opinion of themselves is shared by their neighbours or if it’s just some group delusion.

The book is written from the POV of Judd, the youngest child of the Mulvaneys. This narrator occasionally becomes omniscient, he remembers things he wasn’t around for. This structure might sound messy, but was in fact very intricate, ellipting the main event, which nonetheless overshadows the whole story to the end.

Stepheny

Rating: really liked it
Warning! Warning! Potential spoilers contained in this rant-filled review!

We Were the Mulvaneys is probably JCO’s most known novel. I can’t for the life of me understand why. I will be the first to tell you what a JCO enthusiast I am, yet before reading this I had never read a single novel of hers. I had read and loved her short stories as if they were written for my eyes only and I cherished them as such. I still do…more so now after having read this book.

This book is….something.

I guess a lot can be said about a novel that makes you feel such strong emotions on such a varying range. I felt a lot of anger while reading this. So much so that I found myself clenching my hands so tightly that my knuckles were turning white. I was also scowling a lot which is going to age me some day. I find I scowl when I’m concentrating in general so angry scowling on top of normal scowling is not good for me.

This book is about a family- The Mulvaneys. They are a good family; a well-known family in their country home in upstate NY. These family members have names but to be honest with you each one is referred to by about 4 different names and there is such a long introduction to all of them individually that I couldn’t be bothered to actually pay attention to it. There’s a mom, a dad, a few brothers and a sweet darling sister whose innocence is taken from her in one of the worst ways one could ever imagine.

The family reacts to this “situation” in a way that is flat out appalling. Growing up in the family that I did I find this so unacceptable that I almost stopped reading it. In fact, I wanted to drive until I found the Mulvaney farm and go on a rampage that would either result in murder or a severe talking to with this family. Certainly if I had ever been a victim my father would not have ever blamed me, or begrudged me for soiling the family name. Instead he would have done everything in his power to see that there was justice and that I received the help that I needed to cope with what had been done to me. Yes, I feel confident enough in my family to know that he would have done this even in 1970. The time of the event is relevant, yes, but the point is the problem lies with the father. It is a character flaw. Victim blaming is a real thing and it happens every single day.

The fact that Mrs. Mulvaney puts up with her jackass of a husband and his outrageous behavior where he essentially shuns his daughter is so completely baffling to me. Once again this is because of my upbringing. My mother is one of the strongest willed women you could ever meet. I’m fairly certain that if there were a Mama Bear protecting her cub and my mother protecting me and you had to choose between which one to fight you would choose the bear every time. Hell hath no fury like my mother protecting one of her children.

There was a point in this book where I was actually hoping to see a teenager kill another young man. I was literally grinding my teeth in agitation wishing he would pull that trigger and knowing he wouldn’t do it. I don’t normally encourage murder but in this case I felt it justified.

Button, our sweet innocent victim in this story, shows no personal growth because she doesn’t understand that what has been done to her is wrong. She doesn’t seem to get that the initial act that causes all of this is wrong and she doesn’t understand that her father’s reaction is wrong. She just goes about her life thinking this is just the way things are and she never seeks help for the emotional damage that is so evident to the readers.

The end of this story infuriated me more than anything. Why would you ever give that man the satisfaction of going to see him on his death bed? He single-handedly destroyed your family because he was too goddamn proud to face what happened. He outcasts you, moves you away from your family and doesn’t talk to you for what- 20 fucking years?! And you still go crawling to his bedside like a good and obedient little child?! Of course you do because you don’t know any better and it’s making me angry for completely different reasons! I’m mad because you should have been helped! You should have been hugged and loved and told that it was not your fault. And now here I am blaming you for the lack of compassion done to you by your own family.

JCO is kind of known for making you stop and really think about the world and what goes on around you. These things happen in life. There are tragedies. There is death. There is rape. There is cruel behavior. All it takes is one person doing the right thing. I applaud JCO for making me feel these things. It’s a sign of a great writer. HOWEVER, the subject content was just too overwhelming for me to rate it high. It was such a grueling read. I didn’t enjoy this book. It was written fine- of course!-it’s JCO after all. But it affected me too personally for me to ever love this book or to ever recommend it. I feel bad that I selected this book for my group read. (Sorry girls!!) BUT, it did spark some really excellent discussions.

Roman Clodia

Rating: really liked it

It's the way families are, sometimes. A thing goes wrong and no-one knows how to fix it and years pass and - no-one knows how to fix it.

** Spoilers below **

So, I've seen reviews which don't like this book because the parents don't act the way readers want, or expect them to: but y'know, that's precisely why I like JCO - she doesn't pander to society's myths about what idealised maternity or paternity should look like. As much as we might want our parents to be all-knowing and all-loving, the barest glimpse at any newspaper will, surely, undermine that ideal. Cruel things happen in families - sometimes deliberately, sometimes, as here, unintentionally.

A father faced with his own shaming powerlessness of which his innocent daughter becomes the unwitting living reminder, a mother torn between her spouse and her child... these are the building blocks of tragedy here. JCO doesn't blame, doesn't judge - we can, if we choose, but perhaps we get more out of the book by understanding emotional positions that we might not share. Is that not one of the reasons we read, to experience life through someone else's eyes?

When I started this book I thought it was going to be about one thing (view spoiler)[Marianne's rape and the aftermath (hide spoiler)] and was slightly impatient that there was so much other stuff - until I realised that 'it' might be a catalyst but that really the focus of the book is the imperfect dynamics of the family itself, the way it tears itself apart before partially putting itself tentatively back together again. That 'were' in the title is both a past tense and a continuous present.

Therese

Rating: really liked it
I asked one of my friends to recommend a good book to close out the year, and this is what she suggested. And just...wow! This was a superb read. The writing was impeccable and the story was riveting. I’ve always wanted to read something by Joyce Carol Oates, and I’m so glad to be able to say I finally did.

The story is about a family living on a farm on the outskirts of a small New York town, mid-1970’s. The writing immediately insinuates you into the Mulvaney family, their history, the place they now live, friends and neighbors, what their lives are like, family dynamics, quirks. You feel like you know them, and they seem cool, likable. Until the day their seventeen year old daughter is raped at a school dance. From that point on, we witness the family’s complete implosion, with each character dealing with “it” in their own way, going completely off the rails into a downward spiral that lasts for years. It’s gratifying to see that there is some closure and redemption by the end, but you’ll have to read for yourself to see exactly what that is and how they all got there, and that’s a heartbreaking ride.

Rape is a difficult subject, and a book with this subject at its core may not be for every reader. But if you’re looking for something with great writing and an in-depth examination of character and motivation, you might find this one hard to put down.