Book Review: "We Were the Mulvaneys" by Joyce Carol Oates

It's June 2025 and I've had headaches and colds and unfortunately, I'm not in a great place mentally or physically. I don't know what's going on, I just know it's some sort of decline. Anyways, I hope everyone is enjoying how the weather has turned to rain - I left the window open just a little in order to experience a breath of fresh air. It's difficult when you live in a city to get any fresh air and even then, the air isn't really fresh. I've been flaring up with possible allergies and so, I decided to take my mind off it with a morning read. This is We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates - yes it's another JCO novel.

The novel is narrated by the youngest of the family - Judd. We have his mother and his father, and then his siblings: Michael Jr., Patrick and Marianne. A close-knit Bible-quoting family who are well-liked amongst their friends and neighbours though it can be argued that the parents do pretend to be better than everyone else. A perfect example of the ideal American household, one which is crumbling and burning from within as the novel opens up on to some horrific problems. Their prosperity, religiosity, and unity hinge on public perception. This façade will soon be tested, revealing the fragility of appearances. The American Dream might be slipping from their grasp but that doesn't stop them from clinging to it with all of their strength.

I think the way in which Judd tells the story is very important because he begins by telling us that he'll tell us the truth without trying to sugar-coat anything and yet, he starts by easing us into family life. What we see is a family with a patriarch who are constantly holding themselves to a high standard, one that is simply unattainable without problems. When the problems start to evolve, it is no surprise to learn what has happened. But it is not what happened that is important, it is the life they have afterwards.

The main problem is the r*pe of Marianne after a party. But instead of her family gathering around her and supporting her, her parents send her away to live with her aunt. Her father, who once adored her, can no longer look at her without a deep sense of shame. We see a large amount of the blame fixed upon Marianne. Even when Marianne must see a doctor, the doctor tells her not to be ridiculous or over-the-top about it when she has to admit that she was assaulted in this way. One thing I came to understand is that this life of the 'perfect' family is only attainable if women give up all of their agency and merely are seen as maids or representations of the traditional household wife without a life of their own. More important than ever, this seems to be a talking point of a lot of conservative speakers today who wish that the world was back in this one so that they may get away with mistreating women.

The father's identity is deeply rooted in what others think of his family and if there ever was a destructive way to lead it is this one. He sort of reminds me of a Thomas Sutpen figure - he is deeply psychologically abusive towards the people around him and will stop at nothing for a reputation only to find it crashing down around him. The reader just sits there and thinks: well, you got what you deserved, no sympathy. Eventually, he tries to reconcile this but because of the way in which his identity was designed to depend on the opinions of others, he takes this really tragic turn for the worst. I know JCO is attempting to get us to have some sympathy for him but I just didn't feel anything. If you have this sort of persona and things don't work out, that's on you.

Patrick, the intellectual and emotionally distant second son, becomes obsessed with avenging Marianne. Unlike his father, he cannot abide inaction. Patrick’s vigilante mission is never consummated in violence, but it serves as a deeply symbolic act: a reclamation of agency, a desperate attempt to reassert moral order. Yet his actions alienate him further from his family and from himself. His hunt is something which is deeply personal and yet, we always get these little narrations from Judd which amount to trying to rationalise what Patrick was doing. JCO definitely writes the relations between the brothers with an amount of what I call 'Karamazov'*. Each of them have a distinct identity where none of them really work out - yet each tries his hand at something. For example: he isn't content with being inactive and so, Patrick's psychological toll of being the rational one seems to amount to also being the one who desperately wanted to do something - even though it didn't always work out.

*I like to think Mike Jr. is like Dmitri because of the personality clashes with his father, Patrick is Ivan because of his intellect and Judd is like Alyosha because of his innocence.

As the book leads towards the break-up of the family, the narration by Judd becomes one that is uniquely soft and caring even towards those whom we would not think we were empathetic for. Judd's narrative becomes like Scout's from To Kill a Mockingbird, an observation that comments on the moral structures he is learning and those he is looking to unlearn. He looks critically at the unfair nature of Marianne's treatment but eventually also recognises that she is a symbol of great resilience as she is technically the only one in the end who is actually contented.

All in all, this book is yet another JCO novel that doesn't really focus on the action that has gone wrong, but instead on what this mean for everyone involved. It reminds me of her books The Sacrifice, The Book of American Martyrs and Carthage. I would highly recommend this one to all of you who are getting into reading JCO. It is a fantastic novel.