Reading the 20th Century discussion
This topic is about
We Were the Mulvaneys
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We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates, or the Joyce Carol Oates book of your choice (May/June 2019)
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I will be reading it, probably starting tomorrow.
I read this a few years back, liked it, and remember bits. I won't be re-reading, but I'll happily check into the discussion now and then. I gave this 4-stars and so wanted to try another Oates, but then found others are just too dark for my tastes.
Not me. I tried reading it some years ago and got turned off and gave it away.
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I will be reading it. Probably won't start until next week though. I am a "one book at a time" girl!
I read the first chapter last night: "The Waltons" with foreshadowing.
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I have read a few books by Joyce Carol Oates over the year - Middle Age: A Romance
Blonde
Black Girl/White Girl
Black Water
She is an interesting author - hard to pin down. I have only read a handful of her, many, books, but she seems so prolific and far ranging, it is difficult to label her.
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The Sacrifice
or
Jack of Spades
I'll be starting in the next day or two
Or, possibly, I'll read My Life as a Rat: A Novel if Netgalley authorise my request for a review copy in the next few days.
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Great description - I hadn't thought of The Waltons, but I can see what you mean. The isolated rural life gives that feeling, and I keep being quite surprised to realise that it is set in the 1970s, as it feels rather longer ago. Oates herself was born in 1938, so she would have been a teenager in the 1950s, and I see from Wikipedia she grew up on a farm outside a town in New York State, as Judd does.
There's loving nostalgia in all the little details of their family life, but with a feeling of bleakness and foreshadowing, as you say. I think her writing style is quite compelling.
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Nigeyb, looking forward to hearing which book you decide on and what you think of it. Fingers crossed for your NetGalley request!
I have read a few books by Oates and liked some more than others. I really liked I'll Take You There and am surprised to see that I must have read it before joining GR, as I still remember it quite vividly!
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All these approvals have messed up my reading schedule. I'm going to have to delay reading My Life as a Rat: A Novel by Joyce Carol Oates until after I have read Conviction by Denise Mina
Then I have to read my real world book group choice Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock, before finally getting to Joe Country by Mick Herron
I'll be able to slip in the odd audiobook inbetween though.
Hopefully I'll be able to post a few impressions of my first Joyce Carol Oates book very soon. Sorry for the slight delay.
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Nigeyb , I’m glad to hear you got approved for My Life As a Rat. If you still want to read this together, let me know when it works for you. I’m a one book at a time reader so won’t start it now.
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Nigeyb wrote: "Thanks Angela. I would guess I'll be starting My Life as a Rat in about 4-5 days depending how quickly I can get through Conviction by Denise Mina. [b..."Nigeyb, I’m currently reading [book:Wunderland|41109407] and will probably finish it by Friday. I have some arc commitments and I’d like to read one of those next, so I think I would start the Oates book by Wednesday next week. As you said , we don’t have to start it at the same time.
Roman Clodia wrote: "Maybe the 1970s *were* like the 1950s in rural America?"Not sure what this means.
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Sounds good - thanks Angela
I took RC to mean that the pace of change tends to be slower in the countryside.Alternatively: If the author is using her memories of the farm she grew up in for atmosphere, that would have been the 1930s to 1950s. She was teaching in the US in the 1960s and Canada in the 1970s, and the book was written / published in 1996.
Life is slower in the countryside than in urban areas. Now living in a "small" Southern mountain town after most of a lifetime in the city and suburban area. The "big" city is 30 miles away and is the same size as the suburb I lived in. It has been/is still an adjustment. I did go to a small state university and a small college in the South. But they weren't permanent like this. I didn't own property then. It is a big tourist area though.
It used to be, in the US, that things traveled slowly from East to West. I lived in California in the 50s-70s, and we got fashions about 2 years after NYC was wearing them. RC's comment also followed (and I don't know if this is what she was thinking), that Elvis was a bad influence. That was in the 60s too, that I remember. But I think parents have always thought the music of their teenagers was awful. Simply awful. ;-)
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Not sure what this means."
As Val says, I was just wondering aloud whether the values of rural America in the 1970s were closer to the more conservative 1950s - social change doesn't seem to happen at the same pace even in a small country like England so I would imagine that difference would be exacerbated in the much larger US.
I have the feeling JCO has talked about this subject, maybe in relation to her book Hazards of Time Travel.
Interesting. Maybe I don't remember this book well. Much of the US is still very conservative.
Generally speaking, my experience tells me that cities and some surrounding suburbs are liberal/progressive and more rural and farther out suburbs are more conservative. And they've probably been gerrymandered which means that no matter how many more liberal minded people move to the area - they will still be stuck with conservative representation. But we live in hope.
Generally speaking, I'd say about half the country disagrees with that assessment. But I have suggested before that perhaps dissenting opinions are not appreciated in this group.
Dissenting opinions on the books are always appreciated, they lead to livelier discussions.
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Still, the point here is about the novels, and the author, so I would agree it is probably best to stay away from politics. Especially in such divisive times!
Joyce Carol Oates was born in Lockport, New York, in a rural, farming community, so she, presumably wrote about that small town life from experience. According to wiki, she was the first member of her family to complete High School and so I wonder whether she is reflecting her own cleverness in Patrick. Like our early female undergraduates in Bluestockings, she found university very stimulating, both academically and intellectually. As she was the only member of her family to do so well, academically, she was probably a little out of her depth as well, in terms of not knowing exactly what to expect. I have not read much of the Mulvaneys (and probably won't, until I have devoured the latest Slough House!) but I think it is quite evocative and Oates has a very good writing style, which draws you in.
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https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/bo...
But I saw it includes an interview with Oates where she confirms she was drawing on her own childhood and says Corinne is partly based on her own mother, and that Muffin was her own cat.
We Were the Mulvaneys is perhaps the novel closest to my heart. I think of it as a valentine to a passing way of American life, and to my own particular child—and girlhood in upstate New York. Everyone in the novel is enormously close to me, including Marianne’s cat, Muffin, who was in fact my own cat. One writes to memorialize, and to bring to life again that which has been lost.
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It's not a subject I enjoy reading about either Nigey, but it depends how it is handled. I will await your review before considering this one.
I have read a bit more of Mulvaneys now and the lifestyle is not rooted in any particular time. The Elvis Presley reference is very specific, but I think it may be a confusion of tenses and Corinne meant that he had been a bad influence on her generation not her children's.
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Oh oh Nigeyb,I have a difficult time reading about child abuse as well and usually try to avoid reading it. I wasn’t planning on starting this until Wednesday. I’ll be watching your thoughts until then.
I will start either tomorrow night or Monday. I really like Joyce Carol Oates, some more than others, but she is so versatile. I usually find what she writes, well put together.
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It's pretty dark stuff though.
It focusses on the family dynamics of a large, poor Irish-American family in Niagara whose father is a strict, angry, mercurial and intimidating presence.
The tale is told from the perspective of one of the younger daughters.
The family get embroiled in a violent crime. It's gripping stuff and very well evoked but it's also a bit like watching a slow motion car crash.
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https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
I haven't actually finished myself yet, but hope to do so today.
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Nigeyb, I’m relieved to hear that there isn’t child abuse in Rat!
Reading the 20th Century
Books mentioned in this topic
My Life as a Rat (other topics)A Mighty Long Way: My Journey to Justice at Little Rock Central High School (other topics)
In the Shadow of Wolves (other topics)
My Life as a Rat (other topics)
My Life as a Rat (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Joyce Carol Oates (other topics)Denise Mina (other topics)
Denise Mina (other topics)
Mick Herron (other topics)
Joyce Carol Oates (other topics)
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Anyone who doesn't fancy that particular book but wants to join in can read a Joyce Carol Oates book of their choice.
So the discussion will be both about We Were the Mulvaneys and also, more generally, the work of Joyce Carol Oates.
We Were the Mulvaneys....
Elegiac and urgent in tone, Oates's wrenching 26th novel (after Zombie) is a profound and darkly realistic chronicle of one family's hubristic heyday and its fall from grace. The wealthy, socially elite Mulvaneys live on historic High Point Farm, near the small upstate town of Mt. Ephraim, N.Y. Before the act of violence that forever destroys it, an idyllic incandescence bathes life on the farm.
https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-...