Matt Snediker’s Reviews > We Were the Mulvaneys > Status Update

A book about the downfall of wanting to be the main character and author of someone else’s story you happen to be living in.

Oates gets at this thing of how men see the dignity, character, & perception of the women in their life as a reflection of their own self-worth – treat them like show dogs whose misgroomed fur, or too-long claws,or unwiped eye boogies are a direct reflection of their owner’s own shortcomings, mean the owner is worth less – and that this objectification & ownership is at the root of a big Evil Thing in our world

The amount of rage JCO induces in the reader, the emotionally-unsatisfying-but-deftly-rendered realism with which she grounds the story, the magic and surreality of the Judd solo sequences.

It’s just all so overwhelming.

Man, she’s just so good. The suspense and tension she’s winding, tighter and tighter; the magical narrative she’s taking you on, like a tour through an exotic, ancient, still-thrumming city by a good friend who now lives abroad; the vivid characterizations, all around.

I love JCO’s writing. Too bad she blocked me on Twitter. We could’ve been buds.

She understands better than anybody that from the very second World War II ended, “America” was a thing that happened in the past. The platonic ideal was relegated to the rear view on the hypnagogic highway. 🛣️ It ceased to be a modern conversation or a future endeavor. It was, then on, always the first base camp, further down the mountain, the subject of campfire stories.