Joyce Carol Oates

Below are all of the items from the creator Joyce Carol Oates.



Score Title Creator Year Genre Review
book
8
We Were the Mulvaneys Joyce Carol Oates 1996 Fiction

I found this to be one of the more remarkable examples of building characters, describing their interior lives, and letting the reader live alongside them and their decisions, all in incredibly realistic and moving ways. Your heart breaks for (some of) these Mulvaneys, and those vivid renderings of their thoughts, as these events unfold, elicit even deeper empathy throughout. It's one of those works where, though I cannot personally imagine making some of the choices this family does, being guided through the story on their thoughts and subtle actions makes them seem all but destined to happen. "It's the way families are, sometimes. A thing goes wrong and no one knows how to fix it and years pass and--no one knows how to fix it."

Reviewed on Saturday, November 4th, 2023, 6:08am.

Joyce Carol Oates - We Were the Mulvaneys - Fiction - 1996 - I found this to be one of the more remarkable examples of building characters, describing their interior lives, and letting the reader live alongside them and their decisions, all in incredibly realistic and moving ways. Your heart breaks for (some of) these Mulvaneys, and those vivid renderings of their thoughts, as these events unfold, elicit even deeper empathy throughout. It's one of those works where, though I cannot personally imagine making some of the choices this family does, being guided through the story on their thoughts and subtle actions makes them seem all but destined to happen. "It's the way families are, sometimes. A thing goes wrong and no one knows how to fix it and years pass and--no one knows how to fix it."