We Were the Mulvaneys

The Mulvaneys live on a farm outside the small town of Mt. Ephraim, New York. Michael runs a roofing business, and the four children are happy and well regarded. To the town, the family looks close to perfect.

That ends the night of the prom. Marianne, the eldest daughter, is raped by a local boy from an influential family. Her father cannot accept that it was an assault, and he cuts her off from the household.

Over the next fifteen years, Michael's drinking and bitterness wear away what the family still has. The children grow up in the damage of that one night and of their father's response to it, and each has to reckon with loss and anger.

The novel is a family drama told in alternating first-person accounts, one from each sibling. That structure lets the same events be seen from several sides across the years. It follows the slow breakup of a household and the slow, uncertain work of forgiving. The tone is serious and often painful, and the book deals directly with sexual violence and addiction.