Authors and themes you find compelling

Read "We Were The Mulvaneys" by Joyce Carol Oates if you haven't already. This novel will sound familiar in light of your original post. In the 70's a high school girl is raped by her prom date and as a result her perfect, loving family disintegrates over time. Everyone is affected. The male members of the family particularly suffer because men are expected to solve problems and have a hard time enduring that there isn't much they can do.


It's a recurrent theme with Oates, the difficulties women face in society. She's been writing a long time and is prolific. Her novels take place from the 1940's through 80's, often in upstate New York. She does indict male privilege although she understands that men have their own difficulties and I think she thinks men are different from women. She has written some decent male characters like the father and brothers in this novel. It is a bleak subject but Oates is quite the artist and I keep reading her books.