We Were the Mulvaneys

By: Joyce Carol Oates

Narrated by: Scott Shina

Length: 22 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

Author of 27 novels, Joyce Carol Oates has won a National Book Award and the PEN/Malamud Award. She has been nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Readers around the world marvel at her ability to trace the subtle dynamics at work in the modern American family.

Judd is the youngest of the four Mulvaney children - three boys and a girl - on their parents’ lush farm in upstate New York. In his childhood, Judd is swept along by the sheer energy of the Mulvaneys and their wealth of beloved family stories. But now, 30 years old, Judd looks back through his memories to tell the secrets that eventually ripped apart the fabric of his storybook family.

Reminiscent of the works of Jane Smiley and Anne Tyler, Oates’ novel tells a tale that could be tragic, but is, instead, a ringing affirmation. Narrator Scott Shina’s performance perfectly captures the complex relationships within the Mulvaney clan.

©1996 The Ontario Review, Inc. (P)2001 Recorded Books, LLC

Long story but interesting and insightful

The story was full of interesting character analysis as the family members dealt with ever hanging issues in their lives. I think the author could have shortened or eliminated some of the story lines that did not have particular relevance.

Overlooked Masterpiece

Mulvaneys deserves more attention and prominence in Oates' oeuvre. It didn't receive a National Book Award (like here 1969 work, them) or a Pulitzer nomination (like Black Water, What I Lived For, and Blonde). It's notoriety came from selection by the Oprah book club and a movie adaptation.

But Mulvaneys is excellent! Oates crafts perceptibly realistic characters, who are as emotionally complicated and psychologically baffling as any real human being. The novel also interestingly forays into religious and epistemological issues; in fact, Oates depicts the religious Maryanne heroically, though she cannot defend her faith against her brother's deep-seeded naturalism.

Oates impinges stirring literary conceits upon this simple story, which she admits is indebted to Shakespeare’s King Lear. The narration, generally linear, features vivid flashbacks. The structure works compellingly well, as the flashbacks provide foil for the proceedings of the novel.

The narration is quite good with one exception. Shina often hints at a rural Southern accent, but the work is set in rural upstate New York. This was distracting through the first third of the audiobook.

Otherwise, it's a great listen!

American Family Derailed

brilliant writing, very detailed.... almost to much. did Not appreciate all the religion in the book. nearly stopped listening 3 times for to religion and tedious details. I forced myself to finish, tho.

Great story with some dialect-challenged narration

The great story of the fall and reformation of a family with aspirations of nobility. The writing was excellent and the narration was competent, but I really wish somebody had instructed the narrator that upstate New Yorkers don't have southern accents, even if they did grow up on a farm.

Performance Reservations

With all due respect to the difficulty of narration, and while Mr. Shins is clearly a professional, the performance completely misses the voice of place critical to this story. He should have been coached to speak the dialog closer to a Central New York accent and speech pattern. Too often rural voices are spoken in a totally generic southern drawl. I can assure you this voice would be completely foreign in the Chautaqua Valley, where speech is much flatter, closer to French Canadian. I couldn't take it and decided to read the book instead. If you're not as familiar with CNY, or not as picky, it may not bother you at all. The story is very true in spirit to the place and time, as Oates understands this community in her bones.

An American classic!

It's a good thing all audiobooks aren't as good as "We Were the Mulvaney's" -- nobody would get anything done. We'd just sit and listen. I normally stay away from Oprah books, but this one is magnificent, pure Americana. Absolutely excellent.

I admit to having read this book at least three times, but this was my first (although certainly not my last) listen. I was a little hesitant, not wanting a less-than-stellar narration to 'ruin' it for me, but that certainly was not the case. Scott Shina does an admirable job, getting all the family members just right. Not easy -- capturing the slightly ditsy Corrine, so she doesn't sound like a maniac, but clearly as someone with a few 'issues'. Or Patrick, with his high intelligence, who needs to come off as someone who loves to know everything, but not as superior or arrogant. Even the eccentric and crusty Whittaker West, who came across exactly right, as a mensch underneath it all.

It's a sad book, in so many ways. In the beginning, when everything is perfect in a big-family 'Sunnybrook Farm' sort of way, I find myself thinking that I'd be happy if the book just went on like this forever. But of course it doesn't. 'Something' happens to Marianne, and that changes not only the family dynamic forever, but ultimately results in ... well, read it and find out. I wouldn't spoil anyone's pleasure for a moment.

I will say this: If you loved the book, you may want to skip the over-long author interview at the end. Usually I love those interviews -- the ones Nelson DeMille does, with many of his books, are wonderful and add so much to the book. Not this one. The fact that Oates tries to justify Michael, the father's, actions makes my skin crawl. I also fail to see the heroism she attributes to Marianne -- that wasn't saintliness, in my mind. It was insanity. We do agree on this, though: the animals -- all of them -- were characters all by themselves in this book. If I had a nickel for every tear I've shed over Muffin, I could retire.

Whatever, it's a masterpiece. Just clear your calendar for 22 hours. It's worth it.

As good as I remember from 20+ years ago…

I think I had read one Joyce Carol Oates novel and one short story before reading this novel. This is the one that made me fall in love with her characters, sentence structure, words, and absolutely beautiful writing. My then-fiancé now husband asked that first summer why it was taking me so long to read the book. I explained it was because I’d get bogged down for hours rereading the same passage.

Who doesn't desire his father's death?--Dostoevsky

It seems to me that Joyce Carol 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.

Incredible book

In depth characters , family dynamics and description. Lengthy but worth it.
LOVED IT and highly recommend- especially for s book club- generates a lot to f discussion.

Too Many Tangents

If I have to answer yes or no to the question “did you like the book” I would answer yes, however I felt like there were too many tangents and not enough plot.

The book is about how a family essentially disintegrates following the date-rape of the daughter… yet I’m not so convinced that they would have remained “a happy nuclear family” had the sad events not occurred.

It felt like I was reading a bunch of short stories about a dysfunctional family and there was no point. The tangent about Muffin The Cat was so particularly pointless, it did nothing to advance the story - aside from making me sad about losing my own cat one day.

Overall - not bad, not great… I finished feeling rather neutral.

As for the production, I laughed out loud when suddenly I was told I was on cassette 5! HA! A bit of shotty editing there!