Pat D. (pat0814) reviewed on 11/11/2010 + 379 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 2

This book is hauntingly familiar to Dreiser's "An American Tragedy." Four children, their parents and a marriage are all sacrificed on the pyre of the parents' self-perceived image in the community. Joyce Carol Oates is an author who is powerful enough to make us feel their initial disbelief and subsequent pain following the "incident." I found Michael Sr. to be the most dislikeable character because he used the rape of his daughter to justify his own despicable behavior when he was needed the most and I found the daughter to be the one most deserving of our compassion. This is a book that will make its readers take a good, hard look at the depth of their own meaningful relationships to see if they would survive a devastation of the magnitude suffered by the Mulvaneys. This book is about people who prefer to maintain appearances at all cost and the cost is, indeed, very dear.

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