Creepy , 13 Oct 2008
This book might be subtitled 'Stories of horror and suspense'. Joyce Carol Oates has a fantastic imagination and a writing style that sucks you in so you can't stop reading. Maybe the best story is the novella 'The man who fought Roland Lestarza' which conjures up the world of '50s small town working class life on the edge of criminality, followed closely by 'Feral', a chilling horror story about a child's strange transformation.

Creepy , 13 Oct 2008
This book might be subtitled 'Stories of horror and suspense'. Joyce Carol Oates has a fantastic imagination and a writing style that sucks you in so you can't stop reading. Maybe the best story is the novella 'The man who fought Roland Lestarza' which conjures up the world of '50s small town working class life on the edge of criminality, followed closely by 'Feral', a chilling horror story about a child's strange transformation.

A thoroughly good read :-), 14 Sep 2008
I have spent that last two days reading this book and what a page turner it was. There is no mystery to this book or twist in the tale, but instead a real story about how the life and suffering of Rebecca and her son unfolds. The story is based in America and begins with a Jewish family escaping from Germany prior to WW2 and the impact this has upon their lives, and in particular the main character in the book, Rebecca. Rebecca's life and her journey is described page by page from that of a small child to a woman in her 60's dying from cancer.
This book was recommended by a friend and I would definitely recommend it to others. :-)


Strange, somewhat really intriguing, 09 Jun 2008
I finished this book in a matter of days, not because it was so good I had to keep reading but because I felt it was leading up to a surprising spectacular ending. Unfortunately, I got my hopes up too high with this one!

The first half of the book sees the main character (Rebecca/Hazel) as a child, which I thought was perhaps the best written part of the book - it was very dark but on the other hand was, in my opinion, relatively well written.

I think it started to go downhill a bit as the main character got older. It's difficult to pin point bad and good points because ultimately I felt some parts of the book were very good, but some were dismissavely boring.

As I said before, the ending was a bit of a something of nothing. It could have been made a lot more exciting with a few twists in it. I think the most interesting characters were invented during Rebecca/Hazel's childhood but they were rarely mentioned again and could have been brought into her adulthood more than they were. I think that would have linked the book more together and bound it as a life-story.

I'm glad I read it, because i did enjoy it, however I probably wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it to a friend.

Tedious in the extreme, 23 May 2008
I am one of those people who persevere to the end of a book, no matter how much of a hard slog it is, but I really did have to force myself with this one. For a start, it is far too long; after reading fifty pages, I wondered if anything was actually going to happen.

The characters themselves are quite interesting but the whole thing was just far too tedious. I have never been so bored with a book! Perhaps it's just the American idiom but I found it poorly written (inadequate punctation, which is always a bugbear of mine), spelling mistakes, etc.. Did anybody actually bother to proof-read it?

This is the first book by this author which I have read and I don't think I'll bother with any others.

Musical Chairs, 17 Nov 2007
Rebecca Schwarts is the gravedigger's daughter. In many ways she is the ultimate Joyce Carol Oates heroine: flawed, cowed by life, the child of hysterically dysfunctional parents, orphaned by a family tragedy yet always hopeful, always wanting a better life, always yearning. Because of all that befalls Rebecca she builds a wall of despair and impotence around her: "All they knew of Rebecca was that she kept to herself. She had a stubborn manner, a certain stiff-backed dignity. She wouldn't take bs from anybody."
Rebecca's father held his family in terror: he lorded over them and kept them ignorant of the outside world: Mr. Schwarts bought a radio one day and rather than share the news of the day with his family (as in WW2) locked himself and the radio in his den. All that Mr. Schwarts' family (wife, daughter, two sons) knew was that Schwarts had escaped an unspeakable life in Germany: "her (Rebecca's) father had been grievously wounded in his soul."
Mr. Schwarts was fearful of the world, despised it even: "They do not know us Rebecca. Not you and not me. Hide your weakness from them and one day we will repay them! Our enemies who mock us."
Schwarts has invested in his daughter with a fear of the world, a wariness of anything "out there."
Somehow a man, Niles Tignor finds Rebecca, who while working as a housekeeper in a hotel and marries her: "Tignor had not asked about her parents and might not have wanted to know more."
Rebecca, always hopeful, always wanting to find someone that she can count on gives her all to her marriage to Tignor: she even has a child. "It was said of Tignor that you never got to know--but what you did know you were impressed by."
Rebecca's marriage to Tignor goes sour ("he (Tignor) could make her come like a dog when he snapped his fingers...") both on a personal, physical level and on an emotional one and Rebecca finds it necessary to escape and to change her name to Hazel Jones.
In large part due to her youth and good looks, Rebecca is able to make a new life for herself though always fearful that Tignor will find her. This fleeing is a major step for Rebecca, daughter of European peasants: "You made your bed....now lie in it...it was the gritty wisdom of the soil. It was not to be questioned. Her wounds would heal, her bruises would fade."
Then Rebecca and her son Zack are found by Chet Gallagher and both of their worlds change forever. ("She did love him, she supposed. In the man's very weakness that filled her with wild flailing contempt like a maddened winged creature trapped against a screen she loved him")
"The Gravediggers Daughter" is Oates's greatest accomplishment in a career of major, major work: "Missing Mom," The Falls" and my own personal favorite, "We were the Mulvaneys." But despite these career highpoints and probably because of them, Oates has even improved upon her best work with this sprawling, intelligent, gorgeously written novel of Redemption on the one hand and the Power of Love on the other.
The world that Oates has created here is one in which good acts are rewarded with a good life: a world in which there is hope and that hope is not smashed and assaulted but actually leads to a better relationships, a better understanding of life and a better life.
"The Gravedigger's Daughter" is Oates at her most hopeful, her most positive, her most forcefully repellent of all of her usual dark impulses and as such it is Oates at her most refreshing and therefore at her most humanely thrilling and thoughtful.


"In animal life - , 30 Sep 2007
... the weak are quickly disposed of. So you must hide your weakness, Rebecca. We must". This opening statement reflects a father's command to his daughter, setting the stage for her life. Rebecca, heroine of the story and daughter of immigrants, grows up in rural New York State during the Depression and World War II years. Her environment is characterized by abject poverty, discrimination and prejudice against those who are different. Denying their German-Jewish background is part of their tragedy. No German language is allowed in the house, but neither the mother nor the two older brothers manage the adopted language adequately. Violence, alcoholism and crime are part of daily life in the family and those living in their neighbourhood near the graveyard.

Oates skilfully evokes the oppressive atmosphere in which the gravedigger's family eke out a living, literally at the edge of human society. Increasingly, the young Rebecca withdraws into herself, drops out of school and tries to escape and to follow her brothers. A violent family drama that almost kills her and leaves her alone, in the end provides her with the opportunity for a much brighter future. However, is she capable of freeing herself from her background? Can changing her name, as she does a couple of times, change her life for the better? Hope, trust and happiness are emotions and experiences that are new to Rebecca and that will have to be learned. Her son, a child prodigy pianist from a marriage that was supposed to bring love and happiness, provides her with new energy and focus. But she has to escape again and, now completely unsettled, is moving from place to place until she finds an environment that offers hope and security for her son and herself. Will she stay? Is a new life possible and how will she be able to adjust to love and comfort? Can she trust enough to reveal the story of her past?

Oates' exquisite use of language to evoke characters and landscapes is well known. This talent comes again to the fore in The Gravedigger's Daughter. As the author depicts the ups and downs of Rebecca's emotional and physical life, her style is, at times, light and almost playful, but mostly, given the subject matter it reflects, it is intense and anguished. Those around Rebecca, who are supportive and caring, even loving, are painted as almost too good to be true. The Gravedigger's Daughter is a complex story that will keep the reader captivated to the end. Questions remain in the mind of the reader that the intriguing epilogue will not answer fully. It is not an easy read but worthwhile, in particular those interested in the social complexities in the pre- and post World War II American society. [Friederike Knabe]

Joyce Carol Oates' We Were the Mulvaneys is the story of a happy family. After decades of marriage, Mum and Dad are still in love--and the proud parents of a brood of youngsters, which includes a star athlete, a class valedictorian and a popular cheerleader. Home is an idyllic place called High Point Farm, and the bonds of attachment within this all-American clan do seem deep and unconditional:

Mom paused again, drawing in her breath sharply, her eyes suffused with a special lustre, gazing upon her family one by one, with what crazy unbounded love she gazed upon us, and at such a moment my heart would contract as if this woman who was my mother had slipped her fingers inside my rib cage to contain it, as you might hold a wild, thrashing bird to comfort it.

But as we all know, Eden can't last forever. And in the hands of Joyce Carol Oates, who's chronicled just about every variety of familial dysfunction, you know the fall from grace is going to be memorable. By the time all is said and done, a rape occurs, a daughter is exiled, much alcohol is consumed and the farm is lost. Even to recount these events in retrospect is a trial for the Mulvaney offspring, one of whom declares: "When I say this is a hard reckoning I mean it's been like squeezing thick drops of blood from my veins."

In the hands of a lesser writer, this could be the stuff of a bad made-for-tv film but this is Oates' 26th novel, and by now she knows her material and her craft to perfection. We Were the Mulvaneys is populated with such richly observed and complex characters that you can't help but care about them, even as you wait for disaster to strike them down. --Anita Urquhart, Amazon.com

Creepy , 13 Oct 2008
This book might be subtitled 'Stories of horror and suspense'. Joyce Carol Oates has a fantastic imagination and a writing style that sucks you in so you can't stop reading. Maybe the best story is the novella 'The man who fought Roland Lestarza' which conjures up the world of '50s small town working class life on the edge of criminality, followed closely by 'Feral', a chilling horror story about a child's strange transformation.

A thoroughly good read :-), 14 Sep 2008
I have spent that last two days reading this book and what a page turner it was. There is no mystery to this book or twist in the tale, but instead a real story about how the life and suffering of Rebecca and her son unfolds. The story is based in America and begins with a Jewish family escaping from Germany prior to WW2 and the impact this has upon their lives, and in particular the main character in the book, Rebecca. Rebecca's life and her journey is described page by page from that of a small child to a woman in her 60's dying from cancer.
This book was recommended by a friend and I would definitely recommend it to others. :-)


Strange, somewhat really intriguing, 09 Jun 2008
I finished this book in a matter of days, not because it was so good I had to keep reading but because I felt it was leading up to a surprising spectacular ending. Unfortunately, I got my hopes up too high with this one!

The first half of the book sees the main character (Rebecca/Hazel) as a child, which I thought was perhaps the best written part of the book - it was very dark but on the other hand was, in my opinion, relatively well written.

I think it started to go downhill a bit as the main character got older. It's difficult to pin point bad and good points because ultimately I felt some parts of the book were very good, but some were dismissavely boring.

As I said before, the ending was a bit of a something of nothing. It could have been made a lot more exciting with a few twists in it. I think the most interesting characters were invented during Rebecca/Hazel's childhood but they were rarely mentioned again and could have been brought into her adulthood more than they were. I think that would have linked the book more together and bound it as a life-story.

I'm glad I read it, because i did enjoy it, however I probably wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it to a friend.

Tedious in the extreme, 23 May 2008
I am one of those people who persevere to the end of a book, no matter how much of a hard slog it is, but I really did have to force myself with this one. For a start, it is far too long; after reading fifty pages, I wondered if anything was actually going to happen.

The characters themselves are quite interesting but the whole thing was just far too tedious. I have never been so bored with a book! Perhaps it's just the American idiom but I found it poorly written (inadequate punctation, which is always a bugbear of mine), spelling mistakes, etc.. Did anybody actually bother to proof-read it?

This is the first book by this author which I have read and I don't think I'll bother with any others.

Musical Chairs, 17 Nov 2007
Rebecca Schwarts is the gravedigger's daughter. In many ways she is the ultimate Joyce Carol Oates heroine: flawed, cowed by life, the child of hysterically dysfunctional parents, orphaned by a family tragedy yet always hopeful, always wanting a better life, always yearning. Because of all that befalls Rebecca she builds a wall of despair and impotence around her: "All they knew of Rebecca was that she kept to herself. She had a stubborn manner, a certain stiff-backed dignity. She wouldn't take bs from anybody."
Rebecca's father held his family in terror: he lorded over them and kept them ignorant of the outside world: Mr. Schwarts bought a radio one day and rather than share the news of the day with his family (as in WW2) locked himself and the radio in his den. All that Mr. Schwarts' family (wife, daughter, two sons) knew was that Schwarts had escaped an unspeakable life in Germany: "her (Rebecca's) father had been grievously wounded in his soul."
Mr. Schwarts was fearful of the world, despised it even: "They do not know us Rebecca. Not you and not me. Hide your weakness from them and one day we will repay them! Our enemies who mock us."
Schwarts has invested in his daughter with a fear of the world, a wariness of anything "out there."
Somehow a man, Niles Tignor finds Rebecca, who while working as a housekeeper in a hotel and marries her: "Tignor had not asked about her parents and might not have wanted to know more."
Rebecca, always hopeful, always wanting to find someone that she can count on gives her all to her marriage to Tignor: she even has a child. "It was said of Tignor that you never got to know--but what you did know you were impressed by."
Rebecca's marriage to Tignor goes sour ("he (Tignor) could make her come like a dog when he snapped his fingers...") both on a personal, physical level and on an emotional one and Rebecca finds it necessary to escape and to change her name to Hazel Jones.
In large part due to her youth and good looks, Rebecca is able to make a new life for herself though always fearful that Tignor will find her. This fleeing is a major step for Rebecca, daughter of European peasants: "You made your bed....now lie in it...it was the gritty wisdom of the soil. It was not to be questioned. Her wounds would heal, her bruises would fade."
Then Rebecca and her son Zack are found by Chet Gallagher and both of their worlds change forever. ("She did love him, she supposed. In the man's very weakness that filled her with wild flailing contempt like a maddened winged creature trapped against a screen she loved him")
"The Gravediggers Daughter" is Oates's greatest accomplishment in a career of major, major work: "Missing Mom," The Falls" and my own personal favorite, "We were the Mulvaneys." But despite these career highpoints and probably because of them, Oates has even improved upon her best work with this sprawling, intelligent, gorgeously written novel of Redemption on the one hand and the Power of Love on the other.
The world that Oates has created here is one in which good acts are rewarded with a good life: a world in which there is hope and that hope is not smashed and assaulted but actually leads to a better relationships, a better understanding of life and a better life.
"The Gravedigger's Daughter" is Oates at her most hopeful, her most positive, her most forcefully repellent of all of her usual dark impulses and as such it is Oates at her most refreshing and therefore at her most humanely thrilling and thoughtful.


"In animal life - , 30 Sep 2007
... the weak are quickly disposed of. So you must hide your weakness, Rebecca. We must". This opening statement reflects a father's command to his daughter, setting the stage for her life. Rebecca, heroine of the story and daughter of immigrants, grows up in rural New York State during the Depression and World War II years. Her environment is characterized by abject poverty, discrimination and prejudice against those who are different. Denying their German-Jewish background is part of their tragedy. No German language is allowed in the house, but neither the mother nor the two older brothers manage the adopted language adequately. Violence, alcoholism and crime are part of daily life in the family and those living in their neighbourhood near the graveyard.

Oates skilfully evokes the oppressive atmosphere in which the gravedigger's family eke out a living, literally at the edge of human society. Increasingly, the young Rebecca withdraws into herself, drops out of school and tries to escape and to follow her brothers. A violent family drama that almost kills her and leaves her alone, in the end provides her with the opportunity for a much brighter future. However, is she capable of freeing herself from her background? Can changing her name, as she does a couple of times, change her life for the better? Hope, trust and happiness are emotions and experiences that are new to Rebecca and that will have to be learned. Her son, a child prodigy pianist from a marriage that was supposed to bring love and happiness, provides her with new energy and focus. But she has to escape again and, now completely unsettled, is moving from place to place until she finds an environment that offers hope and security for her son and herself. Will she stay? Is a new life possible and how will she be able to adjust to love and comfort? Can she trust enough to reveal the story of her past?

Oates' exquisite use of language to evoke characters and landscapes is well known. This talent comes again to the fore in The Gravedigger's Daughter. As the author depicts the ups and downs of Rebecca's emotional and physical life, her style is, at times, light and almost playful, but mostly, given the subject matter it reflects, it is intense and anguished. Those around Rebecca, who are supportive and caring, even loving, are painted as almost too good to be true. The Gravedigger's Daughter is a complex story that will keep the reader captivated to the end. Questions remain in the mind of the reader that the intriguing epilogue will not answer fully. It is not an easy read but worthwhile, in particular those interested in the social complexities in the pre- and post World War II American society. [Friederike Knabe]

Jam packed full of details, 26 Dec 2007
I loved the detail in this book even though it did make it very long. The description of the farm and surroundings was beautiful and drew an idyllic picture.
Each chapter ends with an element of suspense and usually the reader is made to wait for another chapter before that part of the story is revealed. In the same way, the story moves back and forward in time so teasing the reader with the main event.
It was fascinating to see the immediate dramatic effect of what happened to Marianne and seemed very real how the effects lasted for so many years.
I found the book quite difficult in the middle stage as it seemed to slow down which meant reading it became a bit of a chore at that point, although overall I really enjoyed it. The effect was that some of the detail in the middle I skipped over.
Judd was the narrator of the book but the book drifted in and out of his story as events unfurled.
I felt dreadfully sorry for the family as when you think it can't get any worse - then it does, however it seemed as though they deserved the ending.

A hard lesson in growing up, 31 Dec 2006
The core of the plot in this novel is around the reaction of a family to the rape of their idolised daughter. However, what I really took out of the book is not how to cope with a specific catastrophe, but the importance of inner strength compared to people who rely on external validation to make them feel good about who they are. The degeneration of the father is centred around his perception of what his family think of him, his clients and the various people of the town. His daughter, while somewhat supported internally by her own faith also appears to measure herself through external recognition, while feeling uncomfortable with it at the same time. The catalyst of her rape flings the characters apart, in some instances across the country and while there is more focus on some family members than others, the theme for all is the same in that they avoid a reconciliation with each other until they have come to terms with themselves and formed their own roots away from the central unit.

The lesson they are learning is that the family of one's childhood is never a permanent fixture and that growing away from it is an essential part of truly growing up. The wonderfully strong character of Corinne Mulvaney, the mother of the family, is fortunately the character that her children have inherited and while sometimes they lose their way on the journey, all 4 children are able to leave and develop the various next generations of Mulvaney.

The family is completely different at the close of the novel, but fundamentally intact as, with the exception of Michael Mulvaney Sr, they are all people who have learned to love and appreciate themselves for who they are before returning to the family unit to share their experiences and ensure that the whole is indeed greater than the sum of its parts.

One note on this edition - the editing is slack, with some grammar and spelling errors, plus some continuity issues in the detail.

Slow Motion Family Disintegration and Quick Reconnection, 20 Jun 2004
The Mulvaneys were living the American dream . . . until their perfect daughter, Marianne, was brutally raped while drunk on Prom night. No one in the family is able to deal with the reality, and their inability to cope drives a splintering wedge into the family and into each of their lives. You can see the collapse coming, like the inevitable deflation of a large balloon after a tiny hole develops, but Ms. Oates wants to take you through every last possible humiliation before allowing healing and reconciliation to occur.

Interestingly, Ms. Oates chose to date this novel into a time when rape was still not spoken about much in public . . . and premarital loss of female virginity was viewed as a moral lapse (even when caused by rape). The events would have different consequences today. She also doesn't focus that much on the rape, so this isn't a book about how a family can recover from such a trauma. Rather, she appears to have chosen as her theme that we need to be more open and communicative with one another. The family's collapse is due to their inability to face facts, help one another and move on. In that sense, the theme of this book is very much like the theme of Ms. Oates's more recent book, The Tattooed Girl.

We Were the Mulvaneys will appeal most to those who enjoy reading about the intimate details of family life, fun with pets and the pleasures of hobbies, gardening and outdoor life. Ms. Oates brings much enthusiasm to her portrayals of everyday events and thoughts that will ring true in their details.

This book needed a strong editorial hand, but didn't get it. It's about three times longer than it needs to be to capture the story that Ms. Oates tells. She makes a big point of having the youngest child, Judd, narrate the story . . . but everyone else narrates parts of the story that are larger than Judd's narration. The Judd narration seems tacked on rather than helpful. She would have done better to have had someone further removed be the narrator and play a bigger role. Ms. Oates also telegraphs her story . . . and you just have to keep reading page after page as she plays it out in constantly repeating detail around the same themes.

To me, Marianne is by far the most interesting and sympathetic character. I would have enjoyed reading a book that developed her story much more than this one did. She struggles with the normal feelings of guilt associated with being a victim while trying to follow the right Christian path of forgiving those who sin against her. Her path is a long and hard one, and Ms. Oates decides to skip the essential moments when she is healed.

At a time when many families are living economically fragile existences, this story will resonate with some as Mike Senior's reactions to the rape cause him to destroy his business. Other than that, there is little reason to read this book. If you want to learn more about how a person and a family should recover from rape, try a nonfiction book on that subject.

As I finished this book, I realized that we cannot tell and show others too often how much we love them.

Slow Motion Family Disintegration and Quick Reconnection, 04 Jun 2004
The Mulvaneys were living the American dream . . . until their perfect daughter, Marianne, was brutally raped while drunk on Prom night. No one in the family is able to deal with the reality, and their inability to cope drives a splintering wedge into the family and into each of their lives. You can see the collapse coming, like the inevitable deflation of a large balloon after a tiny hole develops, but Ms. Oates wants to take you through every last possible humiliation before allowing healing and reconciliation to occur.

Interestingly, Ms. Oates chose to date this novel into a time when rape was still not spoken about much in public . . . and premarital loss of female virginity was viewed as a moral lapse (even when caused by rape). The events would have different consequences today. She also doesn't focus that much on the rape, so this isn't a book about how a family can recover from such a trauma. Rather, she appears to have chosen as her theme that we need to be more open and communicative with one another. The family's collapse is due to their inability to face facts, help one another and move on. In that sense, the theme of this book is very much like the theme of Ms. Oates's more recent book, The Tattooed Girl.

We Were the Mulvaneys will appeal most to those who enjoy reading about the intimate details of family life, fun with pets and the pleasures of hobbies, gardening and outdoor life. Ms. Oates brings much enthusiasm to her portrayals of everyday events and thoughts that will ring true in their details.

This book needed a strong editorial hand, but didn't get it. It's about three times longer than it needs to be to capture the story that Ms. Oates tells. She makes a big point of having the youngest child, Judd, narrate the story . . . but everyone else narrates parts of the story that are larger than Judd's narration. The Judd narration seems tacked on rather than helpful. She would have done better to have had someone further removed be the narrator and play a bigger role. Ms. Oates also telegraphs her story . . . and you just have to keep reading page after page as she plays it out in constantly repeating detail around the same themes.

To me, Marianne is by far the most interesting and sympathetic character. I would have enjoyed reading a book that developed her story much more than this one did. She struggles with the normal feelings of guilt associated with being a victim while trying to follow the right Christian path of forgiving those who sin against her. Her path is a long and hard one, and Ms. Oates decides to skip the essential moments when she is healed.

At a time when many families are living economically fragile existences, this story will resonate with some as Mike Senior's reactions to the rape cause him to destroy his business. Other than that, there is little reason to read this book. If you want to learn more about how a person and a family should recover from rape, try a nonfiction book on that subject.

As I finished this book, I realized that we cannot tell and show others too often how much we love them.

an utter disappointment, 25 Mar 2002
I'm a Joyce Carol Oates fan from way back, and I know there are lots of us out there. But this novel is not only the worst Oates novel I have ever read, it's one of the worst novels I have had the misfortune to purchase in years. The problem, ultimately, is the pacing of the story. Some writers manage to breath enormous color and depth into the slightest stories. Oates does the opposite with the Mulvaneys. She stretches out to the limits of human endurance the telling of a tale that would have had tremendous power and impact if given the opposite treatment. Much of the book is devoted to "telling" (basic fiction writers workshop violation here) the thoughts of the main characters -- especially those of the excruciatingly dull matriarch of the Mulvaney family -- as they struggle with a catastrophic family event that I found myself longing for some "present moment" dialogue or plot event. And it's a challenge, no doubt, to invent a story about a "perfect" American family without resorting to cliche. Unfortunately, Oates fails at that, too. The result is a badly edited (there are many, many fact errors and inconsistencies in this book; in one scene, cherry cobbler turns into apple crisp in the course of one family dinner), tiresome, dull meditation on a family drama, like The Waltons on thorazine. That Oprah put it on her book list is even less surprising than the fact that it sold a gazillion copies and won such respectable reviews. What's the publishing world coming to?

Creepy , 13 Oct 2008
This book might be subtitled 'Stories of horror and suspense'. Joyce Carol Oates has a fantastic imagination and a writing style that sucks you in so you can't stop reading. Maybe the best story is the novella 'The man who fought Roland Lestarza' which conjures up the world of '50s small town working class life on the edge of criminality, followed closely by 'Feral', a chilling horror story about a child's strange transformation.

A thoroughly good read :-), 14 Sep 2008
I have spent that last two days reading this book and what a page turner it was. There is no mystery to this book or twist in the tale, but instead a real story about how the life and suffering of Rebecca and her son unfolds. The story is based in America and begins with a Jewish family escaping from Germany prior to WW2 and the impact this has upon their lives, and in particular the main character in the book, Rebecca. Rebecca's life and her journey is described page by page from that of a small child to a woman in her 60's dying from cancer.
This book was recommended by a friend and I would definitely recommend it to others. :-)


Strange, somewhat really intriguing, 09 Jun 2008
I finished this book in a matter of days, not because it was so good I had to keep reading but because I felt it was leading up to a surprising spectacular ending. Unfortunately, I got my hopes up too high with this one!

The first half of the book sees the main character (Rebecca/Hazel) as a child, which I thought was perhaps the best written part of the book - it was very dark but on the other hand was, in my opinion, relatively well written.

I think it started to go downhill a bit as the main character got older. It's difficult to pin point bad and good points because ultimately I felt some parts of the book were very good, but some were dismissavely boring.

As I said before, the ending was a bit of a something of nothing. It could have been made a lot more exciting with a few twists in it. I think the most interesting characters were invented during Rebecca/Hazel's childhood but they were rarely mentioned again and could have been brought into her adulthood more than they were. I think that would have linked the book more together and bound it as a life-story.

I'm glad I read it, because i did enjoy it, however I probably wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it to a friend.

Tedious in the extreme, 23 May 2008
I am one of those people who persevere to the end of a book, no matter how much of a hard slog it is, but I really did have to force myself with this one. For a start, it is far too long; after reading fifty pages, I wondered if anything was actually going to happen.

The characters themselves are quite interesting but the whole thing was just far too tedious. I have never been so bored with a book! Perhaps it's just the American idiom but I found it poorly written (inadequate punctation, which is always a bugbear of mine), spelling mistakes, etc.. Did anybody actually bother to proof-read it?

This is the first book by this author which I have read and I don't think I'll bother with any others.

Musical Chairs, 17 Nov 2007
Rebecca Schwarts is the gravedigger's daughter. In many ways she is the ultimate Joyce Carol Oates heroine: flawed, cowed by life, the child of hysterically dysfunctional parents, orphaned by a family tragedy yet always hopeful, always wanting a better life, always yearning. Because of all that befalls Rebecca she builds a wall of despair and impotence around her: "All they knew of Rebecca was that she kept to herself. She had a stubborn manner, a certain stiff-backed dignity. She wouldn't take bs from anybody."
Rebecca's father held his family in terror: he lorded over them and kept them ignorant of the outside world: Mr. Schwarts bought a radio one day and rather than share the news of the day with his family (as in WW2) locked himself and the radio in his den. All that Mr. Schwarts' family (wife, daughter, two sons) knew was that Schwarts had escaped an unspeakable life in Germany: "her (Rebecca's) father had been grievously wounded in his soul."
Mr. Schwarts was fearful of the world, despised it even: "They do not know us Rebecca. Not you and not me. Hide your weakness from them and one day we will repay them! Our enemies who mock us."
Schwarts has invested in his daughter with a fear of the world, a wariness of anything "out there."
Somehow a man, Niles Tignor finds Rebecca, who while working as a housekeeper in a hotel and marries her: "Tignor had not asked about her parents and might not have wanted to know more."
Rebecca, always hopeful, always wanting to find someone that she can count on gives her all to her marriage to Tignor: she even has a child. "It was said of Tignor that you never got to know--but what you did know you were impressed by."
Rebecca's marriage to Tignor goes sour ("he (Tignor) could make her come like a dog when he snapped his fingers...") both on a personal, physical level and on an emotional one and Rebecca finds it necessary to escape and to change her name to Hazel Jones.
In large part due to her youth and good looks, Rebecca is able to make a new life for herself though always fearful that Tignor will find her. This fleeing is a major step for Rebecca, daughter of European peasants: "You made your bed....now lie in it...it was the gritty wisdom of the soil. It was not to be questioned. Her wounds would heal, her bruises would fade."
Then Rebecca and her son Zack are found by Chet Gallagher and both of their worlds change forever. ("She did love him, she supposed. In the man's very weakness that filled her with wild flailing contempt like a maddened winged creature trapped against a screen she loved him")
"The Gravediggers Daughter" is Oates's greatest accomplishment in a career of major, major work: "Missing Mom," The Falls" and my own personal favorite, "We were the Mulvaneys." But despite these career highpoints and probably because of them, Oates has even improved upon her best work with this sprawling, intelligent, gorgeously written novel of Redemption on the one hand and the Power of Love on the other.
The world that Oates has created here is one in which good acts are rewarded with a good life: a world in which there is hope and that hope is not smashed and assaulted but actually leads to a better relationships, a better understanding of life and a better life.
"The Gravedigger's Daughter" is Oates at her most hopeful, her most positive, her most forcefully repellent of all of her usual dark impulses and as such it is Oates at her most refreshing and therefore at her most humanely thrilling and thoughtful.


"In animal life - , 30 Sep 2007
... the weak are quickly disposed of. So you must hide your weakness, Rebecca. We must". This opening statement reflects a father's command to his daughter, setting the stage for her life. Rebecca, heroine of the story and daughter of immigrants, grows up in rural New York State during the Depression and World War II years. Her environment is characterized by abject poverty, discrimination and prejudice against those who are different. Denying their German-Jewish background is part of their tragedy. No German language is allowed in the house, but neither the mother nor the two older brothers manage the adopted language adequately. Violence, alcoholism and crime are part of daily life in the family and those living in their neighbourhood near the graveyard.

Oates skilfully evokes the oppressive atmosphere in which the gravedigger's family eke out a living, literally at the edge of human society. Increasingly, the young Rebecca withdraws into herself, drops out of school and tries to escape and to follow her brothers. A violent family drama that almost kills her and leaves her alone, in the end provides her with the opportunity for a much brighter future. However, is she capable of freeing herself from her background? Can changing her name, as she does a couple of times, change her life for the better? Hope, trust and happiness are emotions and experiences that are new to Rebecca and that will have to be learned. Her son, a child prodigy pianist from a marriage that was supposed to bring love and happiness, provides her with new energy and focus. But she has to escape again and, now completely unsettled, is moving from place to place until she finds an environment that offers hope and security for her son and herself. Will she stay? Is a new life possible and how will she be able to adjust to love and comfort? Can she trust enough to reveal the story of her past?

Oates' exquisite use of language to evoke characters and landscapes is well known. This talent comes again to the fore in The Gravedigger's Daughter. As the author depicts the ups and downs of Rebecca's emotional and physical life, her style is, at times, light and almost playful, but mostly, given the subject matter it reflects, it is intense and anguished. Those around Rebecca, who are supportive and caring, even loving, are painted as almost too good to be true. The Gravedigger's Daughter is a complex story that will keep the reader captivated to the end. Questions remain in the mind of the reader that the intriguing epilogue will not answer fully. It is not an easy read but worthwhile, in particular those interested in the social complexities in the pre- and post World War II American society. [Friederike Knabe]

Jam packed full of details, 26 Dec 2007
I loved the detail in this book even though it did make it very long. The description of the farm and surroundings was beautiful and drew an idyllic picture.
Each chapter ends with an element of suspense and usually the reader is made to wait for another chapter before that part of the story is revealed. In the same way, the story moves back and forward in time so teasing the reader with the main event.
It was fascinating to see the immediate dramatic effect of what happened to Marianne and seemed very real how the effects lasted for so many years.
I found the book quite difficult in the middle stage as it seemed to slow down which meant reading it became a bit of a chore at that point, although overall I really enjoyed it. The effect was that some of the detail in the middle I skipped over.
Judd was the narrator of the book but the book drifted in and out of his story as events unfurled.
I felt dreadfully sorry for the family as when you think it can't get any worse - then it does, however it seemed as though they deserved the ending.

A hard lesson in growing up, 31 Dec 2006
The core of the plot in this novel is around the reaction of a family to the rape of their idolised daughter. However, what I really took out of the book is not how to cope with a specific catastrophe, but the importance of inner strength compared to people who rely on external validation to make them feel good about who they are. The degeneration of the father is centred around his perception of what his family think of him, his clients and the various people of the town. His daughter, while somewhat supported internally by her own faith also appears to measure herself through external recognition, while feeling uncomfortable with it at the same time. The catalyst of her rape flings the characters apart, in some instances across the country and while there is more focus on some family members than others, the theme for all is the same in that they avoid a reconciliation with each other until they have come to terms with themselves and formed their own roots away from the central unit.

The lesson they are learning is that the family of one's childhood is never a permanent fixture and that growing away from it is an essential part of truly growing up. The wonderfully strong character of Corinne Mulvaney, the mother of the family, is fortunately the character that her children have inherited and while sometimes they lose their way on the journey, all 4 children are able to leave and develop the various next generations of Mulvaney.

The family is completely different at the close of the novel, but fundamentally intact as, with the exception of Michael Mulvaney Sr, they are all people who have learned to love and appreciate themselves for who they are before returning to the family unit to share their experiences and ensure that the whole is indeed greater than the sum of its parts.

One note on this edition - the editing is slack, with some grammar and spelling errors, plus some continuity issues in the detail.

Slow Motion Family Disintegration and Quick Reconnection, 20 Jun 2004
The Mulvaneys were living the American dream . . . until their perfect daughter, Marianne, was brutally raped while drunk on Prom night. No one in the family is able to deal with the reality, and their inability to cope drives a splintering wedge into the family and into each of their lives. You can see the collapse coming, like the inevitable deflation of a large balloon after a tiny hole develops, but Ms. Oates wants to take you through every last possible humiliation before allowing healing and reconciliation to occur.

Interestingly, Ms. Oates chose to date this novel into a time when rape was still not spoken about much in public . . . and premarital loss of female virginity was viewed as a moral lapse (even when caused by rape). The events would have different consequences today. She also doesn't focus that much on the rape, so this isn't a book about how a family can recover from such a trauma. Rather, she appears to have chosen as her theme that we need to be more open and communicative with one another. The family's collapse is due to their inability to face facts, help one another and move on. In that sense, the theme of this book is very much like the theme of Ms. Oates's more recent book, The Tattooed Girl.

We Were the Mulvaneys will appeal most to those who enjoy reading about the intimate details of family life, fun with pets and the pleasures of hobbies, gardening and outdoor life. Ms. Oates brings much enthusiasm to her portrayals of everyday events and thoughts that will ring true in their details.

This book needed a strong editorial hand, but didn't get it. It's about three times longer than it needs to be to capture the story that Ms. Oates tells. She makes a big point of having the youngest child, Judd, narrate the story . . . but everyone else narrates parts of the story that are larger than Judd's narration. The Judd narration seems tacked on rather than helpful. She would have done better to have had someone further removed be the narrator and play a bigger role. Ms. Oates also telegraphs her story . . . and you just have to keep reading page after page as she plays it out in constantly repeating detail around the same themes.

To me, Marianne is by far the most interesting and sympathetic character. I would have enjoyed reading a book that developed her story much more than this one did. She struggles with the normal feelings of guilt associated with being a victim while trying to follow the right Christian path of forgiving those who sin against her. Her path is a long and hard one, and Ms. Oates decides to skip the essential moments when she is healed.

At a time when many families are living economically fragile existences, this story will resonate with some as Mike Senior's reactions to the rape cause him to destroy his business. Other than that, there is little reason to read this book. If you want to learn more about how a person and a family should recover from rape, try a nonfiction book on that subject.

As I finished this book, I realized that we cannot tell and show others too often how much we love them.

Slow Motion Family Disintegration and Quick Reconnection, 04 Jun 2004
The Mulvaneys were living the American dream . . . until their perfect daughter, Marianne, was brutally raped while drunk on Prom night. No one in the family is able to deal with the reality, and their inability to cope drives a splintering wedge into the family and into each of their lives. You can see the collapse coming, like the inevitable deflation of a large balloon after a tiny hole develops, but Ms. Oates wants to take you through every last possible humiliation before allowing healing and reconciliation to occur.

Interestingly, Ms. Oates chose to date this novel into a time when rape was still not spoken about much in public . . . and premarital loss of female virginity was viewed as a moral lapse (even when caused by rape). The events would have different consequences today. She also doesn't focus that much on the rape, so this isn't a book about how a family can recover from such a trauma. Rather, she appears to have chosen as her theme that we need to be more open and communicative with one another. The family's collapse is due to their inability to face facts, help one another and move on. In that sense, the theme of this book is very much like the theme of Ms. Oates's more recent book, The Tattooed Girl.

We Were the Mulvaneys will appeal most to those who enjoy reading about the intimate details of family life, fun with pets and the pleasures of hobbies, gardening and outdoor life. Ms. Oates brings much enthusiasm to her portrayals of everyday events and thoughts that will ring true in their details.

This book needed a strong editorial hand, but didn't get it. It's about three times longer than it needs to be to capture the story that Ms. Oates tells. She makes a big point of having the youngest child, Judd, narrate the story . . . but everyone else narrates parts of the story that are larger than Judd's narration. The Judd narration seems tacked on rather than helpful. She would have done better to have had someone further removed be the narrator and play a bigger role. Ms. Oates also telegraphs her story . . . and you just have to keep reading page after page as she plays it out in constantly repeating detail around the same themes.

To me, Marianne is by far the most interesting and sympathetic character. I would have enjoyed reading a book that developed her story much more than this one did. She struggles with the normal feelings of guilt associated with being a victim while trying to follow the right Christian path of forgiving those who sin against her. Her path is a long and hard one, and Ms. Oates decides to skip the essential moments when she is healed.

At a time when many families are living economically fragile existences, this story will resonate with some as Mike Senior's reactions to the rape cause him to destroy his business. Other than that, there is little reason to read this book. If you want to learn more about how a person and a family should recover from rape, try a nonfiction book on that subject.

As I finished this book, I realized that we cannot tell and show others too often how much we love them.

an utter disappointment, 25 Mar 2002
I'm a Joyce Carol Oates fan from way back, and I know there are lots of us out there. But this novel is not only the worst Oates novel I have ever read, it's one of the worst novels I have had the misfortune to purchase in years. The problem, ultimately, is the pacing of the story. Some writers manage to breath enormous color and depth into the slightest stories. Oates does the opposite with the Mulvaneys. She stretches out to the limits of human endurance the telling of a tale that would have had tremendous power and impact if given the opposite treatment. Much of the book is devoted to "telling" (basic fiction writers workshop violation here) the thoughts of the main characters -- especially those of the excruciatingly dull matriarch of the Mulvaney family -- as they struggle with a catastrophic family event that I found myself longing for some "present moment" dialogue or plot event. And it's a challenge, no doubt, to invent a story about a "perfect" American family without resorting to cliche. Unfortunately, Oates fails at that, too. The result is a badly edited (there are many, many fact errors and inconsistencies in this book; in one scene, cherry cobbler turns into apple crisp in the course of one family dinner), tiresome, dull meditation on a family drama, like The Waltons on thorazine. That Oprah put it on her book list is even less surprising than the fact that it sold a gazillion copies and won such respectable reviews. What's the publishing world coming to?

Big Mouth and Ugly Girl, 15 Dec 2006
It was kind of interesting. I wouldn't say it was one of her better books. Maybe it was directed toward a younger audience. I guess I'll just stick to her older books.

Just as good as her 'adult' novels, maybe even better, 10 Aug 2003
When I read this novel, I had already finished 'Blonde', the author's adult meditation on Marilyn Monroe, what made her tick, what made that ticking stop. I liked it, but came away feeling rather dazed from the density of the language and the sheer pain in the writing.

'Big Mouth and Ugly Girl' is not like 'Blonde'. It's very easy to read. It starts off with one of the two protagonists toppled from his perch whilst the other contemplates whether she even wants a perch. The way Matt and Ursula meet, back away, then meet again is carefully detailed, and very enjoyable to read, although Oates is such a good writer that she makes you want to shove them together sometimes.

Matt and Ursula are part of what makes the story work, as they are so easy to understand. Matt is the joker, but underneath his carefree persona lies a deeply intelligent, sensitive boy. Ursula is a non-conformist female athlete, tall and muscular, an Amazon in every sense of the word, loving yet hating her isolation, yet refusing to compromise. It is Ursula's determination to stand up for justice that causes her path to collide with Matt's, and her determination to live life that saves him from suicide. She tells him the truth even when he doesn't want to hear it, as the lawsuit which Matt's parents file causes huge tension in the town.

However, the supporting characters are also great. Ursula's little sister Lisa, suffering the double pressures of ballet and the fashion world... Matt's dog Pumpkin, an innocent victim... the two sets of parents, both anxious to protect their children in their own ways from what is happening.

Like the previous reviewer, I would agree that 'Big Mouth and Ugly Girl' is not just a story about trust, friendship and justice but also a sharp critique of the times, of how people refuse to take responsibility, of what needs to be done in order to ensure the safety of young people all over the world, not just America.

I would recommend this to anyone.

More than a story, 02 Aug 2003
Before reading this, I was unaware that Joyce Carol Oates is in fact a Pulitzer Prize winning author. I expected a provocative story of 'friendship and family, loyalty and betrayal', which it is. However it is also a moralistic fable and social critique exploring what is fundamentally responsible for the present messy state of the world. First published in the US last year - and set in a post-Columbine, pre-9/11 high school - Oates succinctly highlights valid issues within our lives, societies and selves which might culminate in certain tragedies.
This book's merit is accentuated by its strong character portraits, which are beautifully flawed and human; and the tone of Oates' writing, which forces the reader to admire/pity/suspect the integrity of each person simultaneously.

I think I've found a highly readable gem.

big mouth and ugly girl - the review, 25 Jun 2003
this is a great book about a friendship between 2 interesting teenagers who appear as complete opposites but prove to be quite similar and how it develops into more than a simple friendship. the book is written in a flowing, funny style and keeps you wanting more till the end. i recommend it to teenagers interested in friendship and romantic stories between the ages of 12 and 15.

Creepy , 13 Oct 2008
This book might be subtitled 'Stories of horror and suspense'. Joyce Carol Oates has a fantastic imagination and a writing style that sucks you in so you can't stop reading. Maybe the best story is the novella 'The man who fought Roland Lestarza' which conjures up the world of '50s small town working class life on the edge of criminality, followed closely by 'Feral', a chilling horror story about a child's strange transformation.

A thoroughly good read :-), 14 Sep 2008
I have spent that last two days reading this book and what a page turner it was. There is no mystery to this book or twist in the tale, but instead a real story about how the life and suffering of Rebecca and her son unfolds. The story is based in America and begins with a Jewish family escaping from Germany prior to WW2 and the impact this has upon their lives, and in particular the main character in the book, Rebecca. Rebecca's life and her journey is described page by page from that of a small child to a woman in her 60's dying from cancer.
This book was recommended by a friend and I would definitely recommend it to others. :-)


Strange, somewhat really intriguing, 09 Jun 2008
I finished this book in a matter of days, not because it was so good I had to keep reading but because I felt it was leading up to a surprising spectacular ending. Unfortunately, I got my hopes up too high with this one!

The first half of the book sees the main character (Rebecca/Hazel) as a child, which I thought was perhaps the best written part of the book - it was very dark but on the other hand was, in my opinion, relatively well written.

I think it started to go downhill a bit as the main character got older. It's difficult to pin point bad and good points because ultimately I felt some parts of the book were very good, but some were dismissavely boring.

As I said before, the ending was a bit of a something of nothing. It could have been made a lot more exciting with a few twists in it. I think the most interesting characters were invented during Rebecca/Hazel's childhood but they were rarely mentioned again and could have been brought into her adulthood more than they were. I think that would have linked the book more together and bound it as a life-story.

I'm glad I read it, because i did enjoy it, however I probably wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it to a friend.

Tedious in the extreme, 23 May 2008
I am one of those people who persevere to the end of a book, no matter how much of a hard slog it is, but I really did have to force myself with this one. For a start, it is far too long; after reading fifty pages, I wondered if anything was actually going to happen.

The characters themselves are quite interesting but the whole thing was just far too tedious. I have never been so bored with a book! Perhaps it's just the American idiom but I found it poorly written (inadequate punctation, which is always a bugbear of mine), spelling mistakes, etc.. Did anybody actually bother to proof-read it?

This is the first book by this author which I have read and I don't think I'll bother with any others.

Musical Chairs, 17 Nov 2007
Rebecca Schwarts is the gravedigger's daughter. In many ways she is the ultimate Joyce Carol Oates heroine: flawed, cowed by life, the child of hysterically dysfunctional parents, orphaned by a family tragedy yet always hopeful, always wanting a better life, always yearning. Because of all that befalls Rebecca she builds a wall of despair and impotence around her: "All they knew of Rebecca was that she kept to herself. She had a stubborn manner, a certain stiff-backed dignity. She wouldn't take bs from anybody."
Rebecca's father held his family in terror: he lorded over them and kept them ignorant of the outside world: Mr. Schwarts bought a radio one day and rather than share the news of the day with his family (as in WW2) locked himself and the radio in his den. All that Mr. Schwarts' family (wife, daughter, two sons) knew was that Schwarts had escaped an unspeakable life in Germany: "her (Rebecca's) father had been grievously wounded in his soul."
Mr. Schwarts was fearful of the world, despised it even: "They do not know us Rebecca. Not you and not me. Hide your weakness from them and one day we will repay them! Our enemies who mock us."
Schwarts has invested in his daughter with a fear of the world, a wariness of anything "out there."
Somehow a man, Niles Tignor finds Rebecca, who while working as a housekeeper in a hotel and marries her: "Tignor had not asked about her parents and might not have wanted to know more."
Rebecca, always hopeful, always wanting to find someone that she can count on gives her all to her marriage to Tignor: she even has a child. "It was said of Tignor that you never got to know--but what you did know you were impressed by."
Rebecca's marriage to Tignor goes sour ("he (Tignor) could make her come like a dog when he snapped his fingers...") both on a personal, physical level and on an emotional one and Rebecca finds it necessary to escape and to change her name to Hazel Jones.
In large part due to her youth and good looks, Rebecca is able to make a new life for herself though always fearful that Tignor will find her. This fleeing is a major step for Rebecca, daughter of European peasants: "You made your bed....now lie in it...it was the gritty wisdom of the soil. It was not to be questioned. Her wounds would heal, her bruises would fade."
Then Rebecca and her son Zack are found by Chet Gallagher and both of their worlds change forever. ("She did love him, she supposed. In the man's very weakness that filled her with wild flailing contempt like a maddened winged creature trapped against a screen she loved him")
"The Gravediggers Daughter" is Oates's greatest accomplishment in a career of major, major work: "Missing Mom," The Falls" and my own personal favorite, "We were the Mulvaneys." But despite these career highpoints and probably because of them, Oates has even improved upon her best work with this sprawling, intelligent, gorgeously written novel of Redemption on the one hand and the Power of Love on the other.
The world that Oates has created here is one in which good acts are rewarded with a good life: a world in which there is hope and that hope is not smashed and assaulted but actually leads to a better relationships, a better understanding of life and a better life.
"The Gravedigger's Daughter" is Oates at her most hopeful, her most positive, her most forcefully repellent of all of her usual dark impulses and as such it is Oates at her most refreshing and therefore at her most humanely thrilling and thoughtful.


"In animal life - , 30 Sep 2007
... the weak are quickly disposed of. So you must hide your weakness, Rebecca. We must". This opening statement reflects a father's command to his daughter, setting the stage for her life. Rebecca, heroine of the story and daughter of immigrants, grows up in rural New York State during the Depression and World War II years. Her environment is characterized by abject poverty, discrimination and prejudice against those who are different. Denying their German-Jewish background is part of their tragedy. No German language is allowed in the house, but neither the mother nor the two older brothers manage the adopted language adequately. Violence, alcoholism and crime are part of daily life in the family and those living in their neighbourhood near the graveyard.

Oates skilfully evokes the oppressive atmosphere in which the gravedigger's family eke out a living, literally at the edge of human society. Increasingly, the young Rebecca withdraws into herself, drops out of school and tries to escape and to follow her brothers. A violent family drama that almost kills her and leaves her alone, in the end provides her with the opportunity for a much brighter future. However, is she capable of freeing herself from her background? Can changing her name, as she does a couple of times, change her life for the better? Hope, trust and happiness are emotions and experiences that are new to Rebecca and that will have to be learned. Her son, a child prodigy pianist from a marriage that was supposed to bring love and happiness, provides her with new energy and focus. But she has to escape again and, now completely unsettled, is moving from place to place until she finds an environment that offers hope and security for her son and herself. Will she stay? Is a new life possible and how will she be able to adjust to love and comfort? Can she trust enough to reveal the story of her past?

Oates' exquisite use of language to evoke characters and landscapes is well known. This talent comes again to the fore in The Gravedigger's Daughter. As the author depicts the ups and downs of Rebecca's emotional and physical life, her style is, at times, light and almost playful, but mostly, given the subject matter it reflects, it is intense and anguished. Those around Rebecca, who are supportive and caring, even loving, are painted as almost too good to be true. The Gravedigger's Daughter is a complex story that will keep the reader captivated to the end. Questions remain in the mind of the reader that the intriguing epilogue will not answer fully. It is not an easy read but worthwhile, in particular those interested in the social complexities in the pre- and post World War II American society. [Friederike Knabe]

Jam packed full of details, 26 Dec 2007
I loved the detail in this book even though it did make it very long. The description of the farm and surroundings was beautiful and drew an idyllic picture.
Each chapter ends with an element of suspense and usually the reader is made to wait for another chapter before that part of the story is revealed. In the same way, the story moves back and forward in time so teasing the reader with the main event.
It was fascinating to see the immediate dramatic effect of what happened to Marianne and seemed very real how the effects lasted for so many years.
I found the book quite difficult in the middle stage as it seemed to slow down which meant reading it became a bit of a chore at that point, although overall I really enjoyed it. The effect was that some of the detail in the middle I skipped over.
Judd was the narrator of the book but the book drifted in and out of his story as events unfurled.
I felt dreadfully sorry for the family as when you think it can't get any worse - then it does, however it seemed as though they deserved the ending.

A hard lesson in growing up, 31 Dec 2006
The core of the plot in this novel is around the reaction of a family to the rape of their idolised daughter. However, what I really took out of the book is not how to cope with a specific catastrophe, but the importance of inner strength compared to people who rely on external validation to make them feel good about who they are. The degeneration of the father is centred around his perception of what his family think of him, his clients and the various people of the town. His daughter, while somewhat supported internally by her own faith also appears to measure herself through external recognition, while feeling uncomfortable with it at the same time. The catalyst of her rape flings the characters apart, in some instances across the country and while there is more focus on some family members than others, the theme for all is the same in that they avoid a reconciliation with each other until they have come to terms with themselves and formed their own roots away from the central unit.

The lesson they are learning is that the family of one's childhood is never a permanent fixture and that growing away from it is an essential part of truly growing up. The wonderfully strong character of Corinne Mulvaney, the mother of the family, is fortunately the character that her children have inherited and while sometimes they lose their way on the journey, all 4 children are able to leave and develop the various next generations of Mulvaney.

The family is completely different at the close of the novel, but fundamentally intact as, with the exception of Michael Mulvaney Sr, they are all people who have learned to love and appreciate themselves for who they are before returning to the family unit to share their experiences and ensure that the whole is indeed greater than the sum of its parts.

One note on this edition - the editing is slack, with some grammar and spelling errors, plus some continuity issues in the detail.

Slow Motion Family Disintegration and Quick Reconnection, 20 Jun 2004
The Mulvaneys were living the American dream . . . until their perfect daughter, Marianne, was brutally raped while drunk on Prom night. No one in the family is able to deal with the reality, and their inability to cope drives a splintering wedge into the family and into each of their lives. You can see the collapse coming, like the inevitable deflation of a large balloon after a tiny hole develops, but Ms. Oates wants to take you through every last possible humiliation before allowing healing and reconciliation to occur.

Interestingly, Ms. Oates chose to date this novel into a time when rape was still not spoken about much in public . . . and premarital loss of female virginity was viewed as a moral lapse (even when caused by rape). The events would have different consequences today. She also doesn't focus that much on the rape, so this isn't a book about how a family can recover from such a trauma. Rather, she appears to have chosen as her theme that we need to be more open and communicative with one another. The family's collapse is due to their inability to face facts, help one another and move on. In that sense, the theme of this book is very much like the theme of Ms. Oates's more recent book, The Tattooed Girl.

We Were the Mulvaneys will appeal most to those who enjoy reading about the intimate details of family life, fun with pets and the pleasures of hobbies, gardening and outdoor life. Ms. Oates brings much enthusiasm to her portrayals of everyday events and thoughts that will ring true in their details.

This book needed a strong editorial hand, but didn't get it. It's about three times longer than it needs to be to capture the story that Ms. Oates tells. She makes a big point of having the youngest child, Judd, narrate the story . . . but everyone else narrates parts of the story that are larger than Judd's narration. The Judd narration seems tacked on rather than helpful. She would have done better to have had someone further removed be the narrator and play a bigger role. Ms. Oates also telegraphs her story . . . and you just have to keep reading page after page as she plays it out in constantly repeating detail around the same themes.

To me, Marianne is by far the most interesting and sympathetic character. I would have enjoyed reading a book that developed her story much more than this one did. She struggles with the normal feelings of guilt associated with being a victim while trying to follow the right Christian path of forgiving those who sin against her. Her path is a long and hard one, and Ms. Oates decides to skip the essential moments when she is healed.

At a time when many families are living economically fragile existences, this story will resonate with some as Mike Senior's reactions to the rape cause him to destroy his business. Other than that, there is little reason to read this book. If you want to learn more about how a person and a family should recover from rape, try a nonfiction book on that subject.

As I finished this book, I realized that we cannot tell and show others too often how much we love them.

Slow Motion Family Disintegration and Quick Reconnection, 04 Jun 2004
The Mulvaneys were living the American dream . . . until their perfect daughter, Marianne, was brutally raped while drunk on Prom night. No one in the family is able to deal with the reality, and their inability to cope drives a splintering wedge into the family and into each of their lives. You can see the collapse coming, like the inevitable deflation of a large balloon after a tiny hole develops, but Ms. Oates wants to take you through every last possible humiliation before allowing healing and reconciliation to occur.

Interestingly, Ms. Oates chose to date this novel into a time when rape was still not spoken about much in public . . . and premarital loss of female virginity was viewed as a moral lapse (even when caused by rape). The events would have different consequences today. She also doesn't focus that much on the rape, so this isn't a book about how a family can recover from such a trauma. Rather, she appears to have chosen as her theme that we need to be more open and communicative with one another. The family's collapse is due to their inability to face facts, help one another and move on. In that sense, the theme of this book is very much like the theme of Ms. Oates's more recent book, The Tattooed Girl.

We Were the Mulvaneys will appeal most to those who enjoy reading about the intimate details of family life, fun with pets and the pleasures of hobbies, gardening and outdoor life. Ms. Oates brings much enthusiasm to her portrayals of everyday events and thoughts that will ring true in their details.

This book needed a strong editorial hand, but didn't get it. It's about three times longer than it needs to be to capture the story that Ms. Oates tells. She makes a big point of having the youngest child, Judd, narrate the story . . . but everyone else narrates parts of the story that are larger than Judd's narration. The Judd narration seems tacked on rather than helpful. She would have done better to have had someone further removed be the narrator and play a bigger role. Ms. Oates also telegraphs her story . . . and you just have to keep reading page after page as she plays it out in constantly repeating detail around the same themes.

To me, Marianne is by far the most interesting and sympathetic character. I would have enjoyed reading a book that developed her story much more than this one did. She struggles with the normal feelings of guilt associated with being a victim while trying to follow the right Christian path of forgiving those who sin against her. Her path is a long and hard one, and Ms. Oates decides to skip the essential moments when she is healed.

At a time when many families are living economically fragile existences, this story will resonate with some as Mike Senior's reactions to the rape cause him to destroy his business. Other than that, there is little reason to read this book. If you want to learn more about how a person and a family should recover from rape, try a nonfiction book on that subject.

As I finished this book, I realized that we cannot tell and show others too often how much we love them.

an utter disappointment, 25 Mar 2002
I'm a Joyce Carol Oates fan from way back, and I know there are lots of us out there. But this novel is not only the worst Oates novel I have ever read, it's one of the worst novels I have had the misfortune to purchase in years. The problem, ultimately, is the pacing of the story. Some writers manage to breath enormous color and depth into the slightest stories. Oates does the opposite with the Mulvaneys. She stretches out to the limits of human endurance the telling of a tale that would have had tremendous power and impact if given the opposite treatment. Much of the book is devoted to "telling" (basic fiction writers workshop violation here) the thoughts of the main characters -- especially those of the excruciatingly dull matriarch of the Mulvaney family -- as they struggle with a catastrophic family event that I found myself longing for some "present moment" dialogue or plot event. And it's a challenge, no doubt, to invent a story about a "perfect" American family without resorting to cliche. Unfortunately, Oates fails at that, too. The result is a badly edited (there are many, many fact errors and inconsistencies in this book; in one scene, cherry cobbler turns into apple crisp in the course of one family dinner), tiresome, dull meditation on a family drama, like The Waltons on thorazine. That Oprah put it on her book list is even less surprising than the fact that it sold a gazillion copies and won such respectable reviews. What's the publishing world coming to?

Big Mouth and Ugly Girl, 15 Dec 2006
It was kind of interesting. I wouldn't say it was one of her better books. Maybe it was directed toward a younger audience. I guess I'll just stick to her older books.

Just as good as her 'adult' novels, maybe even better, 10 Aug 2003
When I read this novel, I had already finished 'Blonde', the author's adult meditation on Marilyn Monroe, what made her tick, what made that ticking stop. I liked it, but came away feeling rather dazed from the density of the language and the sheer pain in the writing.

'Big Mouth and Ugly Girl' is not like 'Blonde'. It's very easy to read. It starts off with one of the two protagonists toppled from his perch whilst the other contemplates whether she even wants a perch. The way Matt and Ursula meet, back away, then meet again is carefully detailed, and very enjoyable to read, although Oates is such a good writer that she makes you want to shove them together sometimes.

Matt and Ursula are part of what makes the story work, as they are so easy to understand. Matt is the joker, but underneath his carefree persona lies a deeply intelligent, sensitive boy. Ursula is a non-conformist female athlete, tall and muscular, an Amazon in every sense of the word, loving yet hating her isolation, yet refusing to compromise. It is Ursula's determination to stand up for justice that causes her path to collide with Matt's, and her determination to live life that saves him from suicide. She tells him the truth even when he doesn't want to hear it, as the lawsuit which Matt's parents file causes huge tension in the town.

However, the supporting characters are also great. Ursula's little sister Lisa, suffering the double pressures of ballet and the fashion world... Matt's dog Pumpkin, an innocent victim... the two sets of parents, both anxious to protect their children in their own ways from what is happening.

Like the previous reviewer, I would agree that 'Big Mouth and Ugly Girl' is not just a story about trust, friendship and justice but also a sharp critique of the times, of how people refuse to take responsibility, of what needs to be done in order to ensure the safety of young people all over the world, not just America.

I would recommend this to anyone.

More than a story, 02 Aug 2003
Before reading this, I was unaware that Joyce Carol Oates is in fact a Pulitzer Prize winning author. I expected a provocative story of 'friendship and family, loyalty and betrayal', which it is. However it is also a moralistic fable and social critique exploring what is fundamentally responsible for the present messy state of the world. First published in the US last year - and set in a post-Columbine, pre-9/11 high school - Oates succinctly highlights valid issues within our lives, societies and selves which might culminate in certain tragedies.
This book's merit is accentuated by its strong character portraits, which are beautifully flawed and human; and the tone of Oates' writing, which forces the reader to admire/pity/suspect the integrity of each person simultaneously.

I think I've found a highly readable gem.

big mouth and ugly girl - the review, 25 Jun 2003
this is a great book about a friendship between 2 interesting teenagers who appear as complete opposites but prove to be quite similar and how it develops into more than a simple friendship. the book is written in a flowing, funny style and keeps you wanting more till the end. i recommend it to teenagers interested in friendship and romantic stories between the ages of 12 and 15.

Oates on fine form - again., 14 Nov 2006
There is no subject that Joyce Carol Oates seems unable to write about, and in her new novel she once more casts her observant eye on a controversial part of America's past.

The novel centres on the events leading up to the death of Generva Meade's roommate, 19 year old Minette Swift, at the Schuyler Liberal Arts College in the spring of 1975.

Told from a 15-years-on point of view, Generva (or Genna, as she is more frequently referred to in the novel), is looking back at her past, and that of Minette, in order to understand how such a terrible death befell her room-mate.

Initially the two characters seem entirely different. Genna is from a well-connected family. Her ancestors founded Schuyler Liberal Arts College and she is heir to a Quaker fortune. Her father is an infamous and radical lawyer who in the past has supported many activist causes and was deeply involved in the "hippy underground" movement of the 60's.

Minette is at the college on a Merit Scholarship as her family do not have the funds to pay the full college tuition fees. Her father is a minister in a very highly regarded Washington DC church.

As the novel progresses however it is clear that the young women are much more similar than they realise. Each is overtly afraid that their backgrounds will be discovered, and that people will therefore perceive them to be something they are not.

Genna feels trapped by her radical, free-thinking, privileged upbringing and so tries desperately hard to do the non-conventional and befriend Minette, one of Schuyler's few black students.

Minette realizes how poorly prepared public school has left her for life at Schuyler College and so retreats into herself, into her Bible, and consumes so much food that her weight increases greatly. Hiding behind a feeling of defeat Minette accepts all of the sympathy that is offered when she becomes the target of seemingly racially motivated harassment.

In the final third of the novel Oates very cleverly steers the story in a completely unexpected direction, and the ending, which does reveal the cause of Minette's death, is really a summation of what lies at the heart of the novel and it's real message as a work of fiction.

I don't want to spoil the novel by giving too much away but Oates uses the background of Genna's family and the fallout from the end of the Nixon administration to make a very telling point about American life during the `70's. The novel is about much more than just the lives of two girls in their freshman year at college, and this is one of Oates's great strengths as a writer. She uses a simple premise for a story and uses it to make a significant social point or observation.

In a recent interview Oates said that the novel is loosely based on an actual event at an American college, and indeed the book's dedication - in memoriam - "Minette" - gives us a clue that once more Oates is using fiction to pass comment on how history can tell us so much about how life has become what it is today.

It is a fine novel and one I would recommend to Oates fans of old, as well as those wanting to sample something by one of the true giants of modern literature.

Creepy , 13 Oct 2008
This book might be subtitled 'Stories of horror and suspense'. Joyce Carol Oates has a fantastic imagination and a writing style that sucks you in so you can't stop reading. Maybe the best story is the novella 'The man who fought Roland Lestarza' which conjures up the world of '50s small town working class life on the edge of criminality, followed closely by 'Feral', a chilling horror story about a child's strange transformation.

A thoroughly good read :-), 14 Sep 2008
I have spent that last two days reading this book and what a page turner it was. There is no mystery to this book or twist in the tale, but instead a real story about how the life and suffering of Rebecca and her son unfolds. The story is based in America and begins with a Jewish family escaping from Germany prior to WW2 and the impact this has upon their lives, and in particular the main character in the book, Rebecca. Rebecca's life and her journey is described page by page from that of a small child to a woman in her 60's dying from cancer.
This book was recommended by a friend and I would definitely recommend it to others. :-)


Strange, somewhat really intriguing, 09 Jun 2008
I finished this book in a matter of days, not because it was so good I had to keep reading but because I felt it was leading up to a surprising spectacular ending. Unfortunately, I got my hopes up too high with this one!

The first half of the book sees the main character (Rebecca/Hazel) as a child, which I thought was perhaps the best written part of the book - it was very dark but on the other hand was, in my opinion, relatively well written.

I think it started to go downhill a bit as the main character got older. It's difficult to pin point bad and good points because ultimately I felt some parts of the book were very good, but some were dismissavely boring.

As I said before, the ending was a bit of a something of nothing. It could have been made a lot more exciting with a few twists in it. I think the most interesting characters were invented during Rebecca/Hazel's childhood but they were rarely mentioned again and could have been brought into her adulthood more than they were. I think that would have linked the book more together and bound it as a life-story.

I'm glad I read it, because i did enjoy it, however I probably wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it to a friend.

Tedious in the extreme, 23 May 2008
I am one of those people who persevere to the end of a book, no matter how much of a hard slog it is, but I really did have to force myself with this one. For a start, it is far too long; after reading fifty pages, I wondered if anything was actually going to happen.

The characters themselves are quite interesting but the whole thing was just far too tedious. I have never been so bored with a book! Perhaps it's just the American idiom but I found it poorly written (inadequate punctation, which is always a bugbear of mine), spelling mistakes, etc.. Did anybody actually bother to proof-read it?

This is the first book by this author which I have read and I don't think I'll bother with any others.

Musical Chairs, 17 Nov 2007
Rebecca Schwarts is the gravedigger's daughter. In many ways she is the ultimate Joyce Carol Oates heroine: flawed, cowed by life, the child of hysterically dysfunctional parents, orphaned by a family tragedy yet always hopeful, always wanting a better life, always yearning. Because of all that befalls Rebecca she builds a wall of despair and impotence around her: "All they knew of Rebecca was that she kept to herself. She had a stubborn manner, a certain stiff-backed dignity. She wouldn't take bs from anybody."
Rebecca's father held his family in terror: he lorded over them and kept them ignorant of the outside world: Mr. Schwarts bought a radio one day and rather than share the news of the day with his family (as in WW2) locked himself and the radio in his den. All that Mr. Schwarts' family (wife, daughter, two sons) knew was that Schwarts had escaped an unspeakable life in Germany: "her (Rebecca's) father had been grievously wounded in his soul."
Mr. Schwarts was fearful of the world, despised it even: "They do not know us Rebecca. Not you and not me. Hide your weakness from them and one day we will repay them! Our enemies who mock us."
Schwarts has invested in his daughter with a fear of the world, a wariness of anything "out there."
Somehow a man, Niles Tignor finds Rebecca, who while working as a housekeeper in a hotel and marries her: "Tignor had not asked about her parents and might not have wanted to know more."
Rebecca, always hopeful, always wanting to find someone that she can count on gives her all to her marriage to Tignor: she even has a child. "It was said of Tignor that you never got to know--but what you did know you were impressed by."
Rebecca's marriage to Tignor goes sour ("he (Tignor) could make her come like a dog when he snapped his fingers...") both on a personal, physical level and on an emotional one and Rebecca finds it necessary to escape and to change her name to Hazel Jones.
In large part due to her youth and good looks, Rebecca is able to make a new life for herself though always fearful that Tignor will find her. This fleeing is a major step for Rebecca, daughter of European peasants: "You made your bed....now lie in it...it was the gritty wisdom of the soil. It was not to be questioned. Her wounds would heal, her bruises would fade."
Then Rebecca and her son Zack are found by Chet Gallagher and both of their worlds change forever. ("She did love him, she supposed. In the man's very weakness that filled her with wild flailing contempt like a maddened winged creature trapped against a screen she loved him")
"The Gravediggers Daughter" is Oates's greatest accomplishment in a career of major, major work: "Missing Mom," The Falls" and my own personal favorite, "We were the Mulvaneys." But despite these career highpoints and probably because of them, Oates has even improved upon her best work with this sprawling, intelligent, gorgeously written novel of Redemption on the one hand and the Power of Love on the other.
The world that Oates has created here is one in which good acts are rewarded with a good life: a world in which there is hope and that hope is not smashed and assaulted but actually leads to a better relationships, a better understanding of life and a better life.
"The Gravedigger's Daughter" is Oates at her most hopeful, her most positive, her most forcefully repellent of all of her usual dark impulses and as such it is Oates at her most refreshing and therefore at her most humanely thrilling and thoughtful.


"In animal life - , 30 Sep 2007
... the weak are quickly disposed of. So you must hide your weakness, Rebecca. We must". This opening statement reflects a father's command to his daughter, setting the stage for her life. Rebecca, heroine of the story and daughter of immigrants, grows up in rural New York State during the Depression and World War II years. Her environment is characterized by abject poverty, discrimination and prejudice against those who are different. Denying their German-Jewish background is part of their tragedy. No German language is allowed in the house, but neither the mother nor the two older brothers manage the adopted language adequately. Violence, alcoholism and crime are part of daily life in the family and those living in their neighbourhood near the graveyard.

Oates skilfully evokes the oppressive atmosphere in which the gravedigger's family eke out a living, literally at the edge of human society. Increasingly, the young Rebecca withdraws into herself, drops out of school and tries to escape and to follow her brothers. A violent family drama that almost kills her and leaves her alone, in the end provides her with the opportunity for a much brighter future. However, is she capable of freeing herself from her background? Can changing her name, as she does a couple of times, change her life for the better? Hope, trust and happiness are emotions and experiences that are new to Rebecca and that will have to be learned. Her son, a child prodigy pianist from a marriage that was supposed to bring love and happiness, provides her with new energy and focus. But she has to escape again and, now completely unsettled, is moving from place to place until she finds an environment that offers hope and security for her son and herself. Will she stay? Is a new life possible and how will she be able to adjust to love and comfort? Can she trust enough to reveal the story of her past?

Oates' exquisite use of language to evoke characters and landscapes is well known. This talent comes again to the fore in The Gravedigger's Daughter. As the author depicts the ups and downs of Rebecca's emotional and physical life, her style is, at times, light and almost playful, but mostly, given the subject matter it reflects, it is intense and anguished. Those around Rebecca, who are supportive and caring, even loving, are painted as almost too good to be true. The Gravedigger's Daughter is a complex story that will keep the reader captivated to the end. Questions remain in the mind of the reader that the intriguing epilogue will not answer fully. It is not an easy read but worthwhile, in particular those interested in the social complexities in the pre- and post World War II American society. [Friederike Knabe]

Jam packed full of details, 26 Dec 2007
I loved the detail in this book even though it did make it very long. The description of the farm and surroundings was beautiful and drew an idyllic picture.
Each chapter ends with an element of suspense and usually the reader is made to wait for another chapter before that part of the story is revealed. In the same way, the story moves back and forward in time so teasing the reader with the main event.
It was fascinating to see the immediate dramatic effect of what happened to Marianne and seemed very real how the effects lasted for so many years.
I found the book quite difficult in the middle stage as it seemed to slow down which meant reading it became a bit of a chore at that point, although overall I really enjoyed it. The effect was that some of the detail in the middle I skipped over.
Judd was the narrator of the book but the book drifted in and out of his story as events unfurled.
I felt dreadfully sorry for the family as when you think it can't get any worse - then it does, however it seemed as though they deserved the ending.

A hard lesson in growing up, 31 Dec 2006
The core of the plot in this novel is around the reaction of a family to the rape of their idolised daughter. However, what I really took out of the book is not how to cope with a specific catastrophe, but the importance of inner strength compared to people who rely on external validation to make them feel good about who they are. The degeneration of the father is centred around his perception of what his family think of him, his clients and the various people of the town. His daughter, while somewhat supported internally by her own faith also appears to measure herself through external recognition, while feeling uncomfortable with it at the same time. The catalyst of her rape flings the characters apart, in some instances across the country and while there is more focus on some family members than others, the theme for all is the same in that they avoid a reconciliation with each other until they have come to terms with themselves and formed their own roots away from the central unit.

The lesson they are learning is that the family of one's childhood is never a permanent fixture and that growing away from it is an essential part of truly growing up. The wonderfully strong character of Corinne Mulvaney, the mother of the family, is fortunately the character that her children have inherited and while sometimes they lose their way on the journey, all 4 children are able to leave and develop the various next generations of Mulvaney.

The family is completely different at the close of the novel, but fundamentally intact as, with the exception of Michael Mulvaney Sr, they are all people who have learned to love and appreciate themselves for who they are before returning to the family unit to share their experiences and ensure that the whole is indeed greater than the sum of its parts.

One note on this edition - the editing is slack, with some grammar and spelling errors, plus some continuity issues in the detail.

Slow Motion Family Disintegration and Quick Reconnection, 20 Jun 2004
The Mulvaneys were living the American dream . . . until their perfect daughter, Marianne, was brutally raped while drunk on Prom night. No one in the family is able to deal with the reality, and their inability to cope drives a splintering wedge into the family and into each of their lives. You can see the collapse coming, like the inevitable deflation of a large balloon after a tiny hole develops, but Ms. Oates wants to take you through every last possible humiliation before allowing healing and reconciliation to occur.

Interestingly, Ms. Oates chose to date this novel into a time when rape was still not spoken about much in public . . . and premarital loss of female virginity was viewed as a moral lapse (even when caused by rape). The events would have different consequences today. She also doesn't focus that much on the rape, so this isn't a book about how a family can recover from such a trauma. Rather, she appears to have chosen as her theme that we need to be more open and communicative with one another. The family's collapse is due to their inability to face facts, help one another and move on. In that sense, the theme of this book is very much like the theme of Ms. Oates's more recent book, The Tattooed Girl.

We Were the Mulvaneys will appeal most to those who enjoy reading about the intimate details of family life, fun with pets and the pleasures of hobbies, gardening and outdoor life. Ms. Oates brings much enthusiasm to her portrayals of everyday events and thoughts that will ring true in their details.

This book needed a strong editorial hand, but didn't get it. It's about three times longer than it needs to be to capture the story that Ms. Oates tells. She makes a big point of having the youngest child, Judd, narrate the story . . . but everyone else narrates parts of the story that are larger than Judd's narration. The Judd narration seems tacked on rather than helpful. She would have done better to have had someone further removed be the narrator and play a bigger role. Ms. Oates also telegraphs her story . . . and you just have to keep reading page after page as she plays it out in constantly repeating detail around the same themes.

To me, Marianne is by far the most interesting and sympathetic character. I would have enjoyed reading a book that developed her story much more than this one did. She struggles with the normal feelings of guilt associated with being a victim while trying to follow the right Christian path of forgiving those who sin against her. Her path is a long and hard one, and Ms. Oates decides to skip the essential mome