We Were the Mulvaneys

Patrick is valedictorian of his class, a talented student even though he is distant and unsociable with his peers. Asked to give a speech, Patrick is unsure what to do. On graduation day, Corinne basks in Patrick’s success, even though Michael is somber. Judd notices other parents openly avoiding their family: “Are we lepers? We, Mulvaneys?—lepers?” (198); in contrast, Zach’s parents, the Lundts, are “talking and laughing with friends” (200). Michael leaves the auditorium before Patrick’s appearance, and suddenly a stink bomb goes off, creating panic, causing people to vomit and choke. Although speculation is that seniors from a rival school have planted the bomb, Judd believes it was Patrick, and that this was his way of saying goodbye to Mt. Ephraim and his high school years. 

In April 1978, Patrick is over an hour late to meet Marianne’s bus, on her visit to Cornell. The year before at her graduation, he was the only member of his family to attend. He also has not visited his parents in eight months, having discovered that Corinne failed to invite Marianne home for Christmas: “it’s just that your dad isn’t ready to see her yet, I’m doing a lot of concentrated praying about it” (208). Marianne spent her final year of high school with Aunt Ethel. Now, Marianne is a part-time student at Kilburn State College (since the Mulvaneys did not have enough money to pay for tuition), and she lives and works in a Green Isle Co-op commune.

As he looks for Marianne, his memory goes back to the radiant girl she used to be before the rape. Searching for her, he thinks back, knowing “he should have sought out Zachary Lundt, long ago, and killed him” (213)—but he too had not done anything about it. He witnesses a young man preying upon a sleeping boy, and soon realizes with horror that the boy is Marianne, “her hair cut cruelly short, face waxy-pale” (214). Patrick brings Marianne to his small apartment. Marianne’s new, waif-like appearance angers him as her presence reminds him of home and of past events. He also learns that Marianne has temporarily left school to help at the compound and is incensed, feeling impotent rage. Marianne comforts him: “I love you. We love each other. That’s enough” (225). As a surprise, Marianne has brought snapshots Judd took of the farm. She tells him she believes dad will soon ask her to visit home. Again, he is angered: “‘Dad’!—how can you call him ‘Dad’! He’s a blind, selfish man. He’s cruel. He’s crazy. The way he’s treated you—crazy! Why care about him, or her? Let them go” (233). 

“The Huntsman” is a German woodcut Patrick has first seen in his mother’s shop when he was 11. It depicts a young hunter aiming his rifle at a mountain ram. Both are “heroic figures, very male” (238). The work represents them as “twins of a kind” (238). After Marianne’s visit, Patrick remembers the woodcut, and especially “a young male as hunter, warrior, killer” (239). He briefly asks himself, “Am I coded, too, to hunt?” (239), before rejecting the notion. 

As an experiment in normality, Patrick decides to go to a rock concert, so he can experience the elation the majority of his peers share, because “Normal thrives. Normal enters heaven” (241). During the concert of the band called Plastica, Patrick experiences disgust and panic, feeling “This isn’t for me. I hate my kind” (243). As he fights his way out of the crowd to leave, he mistakes a young man for Zachary Lundt and realizes “he’d been thinking of Zachary Lundt compulsively” (247). He almost lunges at the man, before realizing his mistake.

Michael has lost his standing in the community, everything he cared for, and therefore his dignity. As he enters the bar in his country club, he catches his former friends “exchanging a quick startled glance—a look of warning, caution passing between them” (248). He drinks a glass of beer at the bar, nursing his impotent rage at this betrayal, orders another and then walks to the group sitting in the booth and “empties his glass of beer in Judge Gerald Kirkland’s face” (250). 

Patrick needs Judd’s help, which thrills and touches Judd, as he longs for his brothers. Patrick rarely visits, and his “life in Ithaca was private, and we weren’t to inquire” (251). Meanwhile, Michael has been arrested for assault, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest, and is awaiting trial. The country club has expelled him. The family will need to sell the farm. Patrick needs help getting revenge on Zachary, so he wants Judd to get him Mike’s old rifle.