'Fiction is a solution, the best solution, to the problem of existential solitude'

We Were the Mulvaneys Paperback

We Were the Mulvaneys

Joyce Carol Oates

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.

Reviews of We Were the Mulvaneys

    • ‘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

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