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    Missing Mom: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Missing Mom: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Missing Mom: A Novel
    Ebook580 pages11 hours

    Missing Mom: A Novel

    By Joyce Carol Oates

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Nikki Eaton, single, thirty-one, sexually liberated, and economically self-supporting, has never particularly thought of herself as a daughter. Yet, following the unexpected loss of her mother, she undergoes a remarkable transformation during a tumultuous year that brings stunning horror, sorrow, illumination, wisdom, and even—from an unexpected source—a nurturing love.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 13, 2009
    ISBN9780061748080
    Unavailable
    Missing Mom: A Novel
    Author

    Joyce Carol Oates

    Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Medal of Humanities, the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Book Award, and the 2019 Jerusalem Prize, and has been several times nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. She has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including the national bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys; Blonde, which was nominated for the National Book Award; and the New York Times bestseller The Falls, which won the 2005 Prix Femina. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978.

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    Reviews for Missing Mom

    3.5/5

    188 ratings17 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Another wonderful book by one of my favorite authors. Great characterizations and development of narrative flow!
    • 3/5
      I listened to the audio version of this book which I'm sure influenced how I reacted to it. The reader was good but the book never grabbed me. I find Joyce Carol Oates work uneven. I absolutely love some of it but a lot of it leaves me cold. This story, about a single, adult woman who visits her widowed mother and finds her body, murdered in the family home, isn't a mystery. It's about her reactions to the death, and her interactions with her sister -- her only sibling -- in the aftermath. I didn't identify with the main character, which is why I didn't connect emotionally with the story. I have a paper copy of the book and in looking at it, I think I may have enjoyed it more on the printed page. On the other hand it's fairly long and I may have found it slow. How's that for an ambivalent review? You will have to decide this one for yourself.
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    • 4/5
      Everything is normal for Nicole, until it isn't anymore. One day she's laughing at her mother's quirks, shaking her head at her predictable frustrations, and grudgingly accepting her scolding. And the next day, it's all over. When Nikki finds her mother's body, brutally stabbed to death by a stranger in a random act of violence, she goes into shock. It takes days for her to understand what has happened, but it will take much longer to realize the profound repercussions in her life.After awhile, she moves into her mother's house so she can slowly clean it out. But soon she is living her mother's life, visiting her mother's friends, baking her mother's recipes in an attempt to understand the woman better. To her shock, Nikki realizes that this woman she lived with for so long has kept many secrets. A moving and emotional novel about loss, grief, and the things one takes to the grave.
    • 3/5
      I was emotionally invested in this reading (and listening experience), caught up in the upheaval of loss and recovery, as bewildered as the characters by the effects of grief, only to have all of that apparently minimized by a gift-wrapped, no-loose-ends conclusion.

      In this reading, I saw myself with many of the same undesirable and lamentable characteristics of the created characters. It will be the rare reader that does not see bits of herself in these pages.

      It is a worthy read, even without satisfaction in the end.

      Audio book reading was fantastic and contributed mightily to my enjoyment.
    • 3/5
      How do we honor our parents memory? Keep part of them alive? Embody their characteristics so we can move forward in our life after their death? This is fiction, of course, so no real answers here. Having lost both of my parents at a young age, I am also fascinated by how other women cope without their mothers. This is a sweet read, not but because it is easy or without pain, but because Nickie so clearly cherished and honored her mother's memory. Its a good start to encourage me to remember my own mother.
    • 3/5
      This is the first of Joyce Carol Oates books I have actually wanted to read all the way through - I have had to force my way through some of the others and even given up on one or two. Usually her style irritates me for some reason but I found this intriguing for the emotion and as a subject very rarely explored. Deeply flawed, yet realisticly so, the characters and relationships have an honesty that is appealing and irritating at the same time. I'd recommend you at least try it.
    • 2/5
      I love Joyce Carol Oates, but this is not one of my favorites. Her work is usually full of conflicting and surprising details with creative twists and turns that effectively play off one another. This one just sort of plodded along without her usual depth or intensity. I have to wonder if she wrote this after her mother died and if this was her way of expressing her feelings - a cathartic venture? If so, I hope it served its purpose, to this extent.
    • 4/5
      This story about the effects of a mother's murder on two very different sisters is told from the point of view of the "errant" sister. She's the one who wanted to get away, and did. Now she is expected to help with the aftermath. Interesting twists, turns and changes in several relationships develop as the sisters deal with the aftermath in their own ways. I enjoyed how she approached the effect of the death on each of the girls and thought it was a very good interpretation of a difficult event.
    • 3/5
      I didnt really care for this book. I thought a lot of the characters were under developed and I didnt like the main character. Very hard reading for me!
    • 4/5
      Great down-to-earth book. A real book about the emotions of losing someone tragically and suddenly. A reminder to live for the moment.
    • 4/5
      As with all of JCO's novels, there is much more to this book than I originally assumed after reading the first few chapters. The dual identities of the characters crept up on me and I looked back on my initial premises with surprise as I continued to read. She draws her readers into character and plot complexities with such mastery. This book is harrowing, heart-rending and, above all, absorbing. `
    • 5/5
      Another great book from one of my favourite authors. A daughter's love for her mother is explored as she and her sister come to terms with the shocking murder of their mother and family secrets are laid bare in the process. An intimate protrait of a small community reeling in the wake of a devastating crime. Wonderful.
    • 4/5
      Joyce Carol Oates is one of my favourite authors, so I knew I was in for a compelling family drama. This is a story of a young woman coping with the murder of her mother. The characters aren't perfect; they are very real people. This book didn't evoke the stong emotions in me that some other Oates novels have, but it was a moving story about family relationships.
    • 4/5
      My mom passed away 3 years ago, though I hadbought it quite some time ago I could onlyrecently read it. The mother and daughter'srelationship felt real, an accurate portrayal of the mother/daughter dance and the things often left unsaid.
    • 4/5
      Hmmm - what to say about a book that I picked up, read, put down, picked up...for 5 months? I can say that I actually liked the characters - which is rare for me when it comes to JCO. I really got involved in the story...once I hit page 358. Only at that point did I feel like the main character, Nikki, was actually trying to get a sense of who her mother was as a person. Only then did I start to feel some of Nikki's grief as she realized her mother was lost to her forever. My rating of 4 stars applies mostly to those last 76 pages. (Oh - and the scene where Nikki finds her mother's body - that scene would rate 4.5 stars. Absolutely gripping.)
    • 3/5
      This is the third novel by Oates I've attempted, & despite her solid reputation, the first I've finished. It's the story of a young (30 or so) woman dealing with the sudden death (by murder) of her mother, four years after her father's death. So it's not that her Mom is missing, as in so much contemporary fiction, but that she's missing her Mom. And that's the story--all 430 pages; it's as simple as that. It's OK, though there are no fully fleshed out, sympathetic male characters.