We Were the Mulvaneys

A Literary Fiction Novel by Joyce Carol Oates

Subgenres:

Family Saga,
Dysfunctional Families

Published 1996

Length 465 pages

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This book is for you if you're into...

Family sagas unraveling after a secret shatters their world
Stories where silence and shame haunt every relationship
Narratives about hope and love fighting through deep suffering

From Little Stack

The hugely prolific author (and full-time social media icon) Joyce Carol Oates reached a new level of recognition in 2001 when her 1996 novel We Were the Mulvaneys was chosen for Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club.

Michael and Corinne Mulvaney are the parents of four children: Michael Jr., Patrick, Marianne, and Judd. Their seemingly idyllic upper-middle class life on the family farm in upstate New York slowly falls apart after Marianne goes to her high school prom and is attacked by a classmate whose father is a friend of Michael. As her dad falls into alcoholism and their family reputation disintegrates in the aftermath, Marianne is forced to grapple with how her life has sparked such seismic change among those she loves.

As Featured in The Most Compelling Family Sagas Modern Fiction Has to Offer by Kayleigh Donaldson

Publisher Description

The Mulvaneys are blessed by all that makes life sweet. But something happens on Valentine's Day, 1976—an incident that is hushed up in the town and never spoken of in the Mulvaney home—that rends the fabric of their family life...with tragic consequences.

Years later, the youngest son attempts to piece together the fragments of the Mulvaneys' former glory, seeking to uncover and understand the secret violation that brought about the family's tragic downfall.

Profoundly cathartic, this extraordinary novel unfolds as if Oates, in plumbing the darkness of the human spirit, has come upon a source of light at its core. Moving away from the dark tone of her more recent masterpieces, Joyce Carol Oates turns the tale of a family struggling to cope with its fall from grace into a deeply moving and unforgettable account of the vigor of hope and the power of love to prevail over suffering.

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