Another long one.... The course of the book is incredible; by the end you see the outcome of one small hour in one small life.

Sending to chambejd as part of a trade. Hope you enjoy it!

Received in the mail today as part of a trade. Thanks for sharing this book!

I finally finished this book today. I would read little bits here and there but it just seemed to take forever. I enjoyed the story, but I never really connected with the characters. I found them all to be very frustrating.

I am really glad that I had the opportunity to read this book though! Thanks again GABAGirl for sending it to me. I am sending it off to another bookcrosser as a RABCK.

I have just received this in the mail and have a wish fulfilled! Thank you so much,, Chambejd! I look forward to reading it!

What an enormous family saga Joyce Carol Oates has created with her novel We Were the Mulvaneys! I have always liked this author and did enjoy this novel in spite of its detail and length. Set in and around Chataqua county in New York, the warm happy Mulvaney clan falls apart after an unfortunate event. It is from this pivotal event that the novels spins both backwards (to learn of the lives of the parents) and forwards (what happens to each of these people as well as their one daughter and their three sons. Different chapters are presented from either the author's narrative or from the youngest son's perceptions in the first person. I found it somewhat despairing to see this family struggle so, even as I recognize how real each one's life resounds within me. I feel as though each person and indeed many of their pets felt realistic, and the settings come alive through Oates' creative skills and voice. Perhaps the character who suffers/struggles the least effectively against "fate" is the father, of whom Patrick says to his youngest sibling: "Look, Judd, our father is just a casualty. He's one of those frogs whose life is sucked out of them without them having a clue what is going on, by a giant water spider." Dear universe, let none of us ever really have such a fate! There is an undercurrent of rage and a desire on the part of some to get revenge (except for the one person who in fact was initially hurt). Once again, Patrick, the "thinking" sibling, explains: "You can believe in evil apart from the devil... Evil is genetically programmed into our species, like our rapacity against nature, our greed and superstition and stupidity--I mean, the inclination. We have a choice of activating the evil within, or not. We have free will." Yet, in spite of those quotes, the book ends with hope and love, for those too we yearn for.

on the bench near the entrances