We Were the Mulvaneys
The unforgettable story of the rise, fall and ultimate redemption of an American family.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.
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JOYCE CAROL OATES
We Were the Mulvaneys
A NOVEL
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Fourth Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
This edition published by Harper Perennial 2008
First published in Great Britain by Fourth Estate in 2001
Copyright © The Ontario Review, Inc. 1996
The quoted passage on page 177 is taken from Ludwig von Bertalanffy,
Problems of Life: An Evaluation of Modern Biological and Scientific Thought (Pitman Publishing, Ltd, London, 1952), page 103
PS Section copyright © Sarah O’Reilly 2008, except ‘What is a Family except Memories?’ by Joyce Carol Oates © The Ontario Review, Inc. 2008 PS™ is a trademark of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
Joyce Carol Oates asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780007268399
Ebook Edition © DECEMBER 2012 ISBN: 9780007502134 Version: 2017-04-20
From the reviews of We Were the Mulvaneys:
‘Oates’s finest … a major achievement’
Chicago Tribune
‘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’
DAVID GATES, New York Times
‘This is a book that will break your heart, heal it, then break it again every time you think about it’
Los Angeles Times
‘Novelists such as Updike, Roth, Wolfe and Mailer slug it out for the title of the Great American Novelist. But maybe they’re wrong. Maybe, just maybe, the Great American Novelist is a woman’
Herald
‘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’
Kirkus
for my “Mulvaneys” …
EPIGRAPH
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged.Missing me one place search another,I stop some where waiting for you.
from Walt Whitman, Song of Myself
CONTENTS
EPILOGUE REUNION: FOURTH OF JULY 1993
P.S. IDEAS, INTERVIEWS & FEATURES …
What is a Family Except Memories?
If You Liked this, Why not Try More From the Perennial Collection
We were the Mulvaneys, remember us?
You may have thought our family was larger, often I’d meet people who believed we Mulvaneys were a virtual clan, but in fact there were only six of us: my dad who was Michael John Mulvaney, Sr., my mom Corinne, my brothers Mike Jr. and Patrick and my sister Marianne, and me—Judd.
From summer 1955 to spring 1980 when my dad and mom were forced to sell the property there were Mulvaneys at High Point Farm, on the High Point Road seven miles north and east of the small city of Mt. Ephraim in upstate New York, in the Chautauqua Valley approximately seventy miles south of Lake Ontario.
High Point Farm was a well-known property in the Valley, in time to be designated a historical landmark, and “Mulvaney” was a well-known name.
