We Were The Mulvaneys - Oates
I'll admit off the top, I'm character-driven when it comes to books and movies. The plot need not be that remarkable, as a matter of fact, sometimes simplicity is the key, but the characters themselves are what I'm most interested in, and how they react to the conflict that occurs.
We Are The Mulvaneys is the first book I've read by Joyce Carol Oates and more than likely will not be the last. The book is about a family, a happy, healthy, prosperous family living on a farm in upstate New York. More than that, it's about one incident, one day in their life, one moment that happened personally to one and communally to the whole family and how it changed them forever. It's the story of the struggles from within a family to detach and reattach. To deal and to deal with those who don't deal. It's a story about people. People dealing with life. People dealing with each other. People dealing with themselves.
Overall, I enjoyed the book. I loved the depth Oates went to to allow the reader to really become attached to each member of the Mulvaney family. I felt each struggle, felt each personal battle. I related to each child and each parent.
But it felt to me long-winded at times. Details of tangental pieces that I could not find myself interested in, because I was already so full of the details of the family. There were times when I found myself skimming, wondering why she included so many paragraphs to things that did not educate me further on any character, their motives, or their emotions. Descriptions that went beyond just giving me background or setting. It was a long book, arduous at times to read through, and yet even now, I am thinking about the Mulvaneys, thinking about my own family, thinking about how families deal with crisis, personally and as a unit.
I recommend the book. I'll pick up another of hers here before long and see if perhaps it captivates me as much or if I get lost in too much detail.
We Are The Mulvaneys is the first book I've read by Joyce Carol Oates and more than likely will not be the last. The book is about a family, a happy, healthy, prosperous family living on a farm in upstate New York. More than that, it's about one incident, one day in their life, one moment that happened personally to one and communally to the whole family and how it changed them forever. It's the story of the struggles from within a family to detach and reattach. To deal and to deal with those who don't deal. It's a story about people. People dealing with life. People dealing with each other. People dealing with themselves.
Overall, I enjoyed the book. I loved the depth Oates went to to allow the reader to really become attached to each member of the Mulvaney family. I felt each struggle, felt each personal battle. I related to each child and each parent.
But it felt to me long-winded at times. Details of tangental pieces that I could not find myself interested in, because I was already so full of the details of the family. There were times when I found myself skimming, wondering why she included so many paragraphs to things that did not educate me further on any character, their motives, or their emotions. Descriptions that went beyond just giving me background or setting. It was a long book, arduous at times to read through, and yet even now, I am thinking about the Mulvaneys, thinking about my own family, thinking about how families deal with crisis, personally and as a unit.
I recommend the book. I'll pick up another of hers here before long and see if perhaps it captivates me as much or if I get lost in too much detail.
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