Missing Mom: A Novel [Hardcover]

Joyce Carol Oates (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 4, 2005

In MISSING MOM, 31-year-old Nikki Eaton, single, sexually liberated and economically self-supporting, a young woman who never particularly thought of herself as a daughter, learns to cope with the unexpected loss of her mother over the course of a tumultous year of mourning that brings sorrow, illumination, wisdom, and even, from an unexpected source, a nurturing love.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Oates's latest returns to upstate New York's Mount Ephraim, the setting of We Were the Mulvaneys, Oates's 1996 novel—a 2001 Oprah pick—about one family's privilege and decay. This time, Oates turns to the middle class: narrator Nikki Eaton, 31, is a reporter for the smalltown Beacon and her family's black sheep. She's having an affair with a married DJ; she barely tolerates her widowed mother, Gwen, and her homemaker sister, Clare. As the novel opens, Nikki arrives at Gwen's Mother's Day party with newly spiked, "inky-maroon" hair and contempt for Gwen's cooking, one-story house and endless munificence to her ragtag guests. Two days later, Gwen is murdered by an ex-con. Chronicling Nikki's year following Gwen's death, the novel includes some wonderfully precise emotional observations. But more often the prose sags beneath the weight of banal information and a story line too redolent of pulp. Naturally, the "swarthy" police detective investigating Gwen's murder initially seems repulsive, and naturally, in the novel's final pages, Nikki thinks: "I had not noticed in the past how strong his profile was." There are no surprises, that's for sure. And yet the novel is so conventional and relentlessly detailed that it can't help showing its characters behaving in ways that resonate. (Oct.)
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From Bookmarks Magazine

"This is my story about missing my mother," Nikki says at the start of Missing Mom. "One day, in a way unique to you, it will be your story, too." Although many critics compared Missing Mom to Oates’s classic, We Were the Mulvaneys, they agreed that the latter is the far superior work. Reviewers thought Nikki inconsistent and uneven; other characters came off as flat. Only the mother remained in their minds as a magnificent, realistic character—one of Oates’s best to date, in fact, since Oates reveals the underestimated supermom as a woman with her own secrets and complexity. Others, however, criticized the plot as lacking originality and surprise. Though Missing Mom disappointed critics in light of their lofty expectations of this award-winning author, the good news is that there’s probably another novel just around the corner.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Ecco; 1ST edition (October 4, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 006081621X
• ISBN-13: 978-0060816216
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,592,980 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Joyce Carol Oates is the author of more than 70 books, including novels, short story collections, poetry volumes, plays, essays, and criticism, including the national bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys and Blonde. Among her many honors are the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction and the National Book Award. Oates 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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Moms, January 7, 2006

By 

MICHAEL ACUNA (Southern California United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Missing Mom: A Novel (Hardcover)

We all love our mothers but many times throughout our lives, we don't. When we are old enough we can't wait to get away from them: we crave our freedom and when we get it... returning home is often a chore: "I didn't visit home often. I tried not to feel guilty: Mom tried not to make me feel guilty. But a kind of constriction came over me when I returned, an invisible clamp across my chest...When will you get married, Nikki? When will you have children...Without family, what is there?"
Nikki and Clare's Mom, Gwen Eaton was a kind woman. A woman who was called "Feather" in high school because her personality and demeanor was as light as one. After her husband dies she dedicates herself to others: teaching swimming to seniors, volunteering, making others feel comfortable...this made her feel good and it made her feel useful. Then one day Gwen is "there" and the next day she isn't.
"Missing Mom" is Joyce Carol Oates tribute and heartfelt reminiscence honoring the spirit of her mother, Carolina and as such it is a major departure for Oates. This novel is warm, cozy and basks in the kind of gold, autumnal glow of a life fondly remembered. Gone are some of Oates' trademarks: the grotesque scenes of gluttony and sexual abandon to name a couple. But Oates being Oates she can't help but include scenes like this: "...her face had been virtually remodeled with some kind of flesh colored putty. It was still a round face but appeared flattened somehow...this was a wax-doll face attractively powdered, rouged, lipsticked rose pink to suggest innocence, purity...you were meant to think...Why she is only sleeping...So Peaceful. Except this wasn't sleep, and it wasn't peaceful. More like a coma."
Though Clare and Nikki react to their mother's death in different ways, it is Nikki that Oates zeroes in on: "...Mom had been strong, Mom had not been weak and self pitying. But I was made to realize now that grief would come in waves and there would be wave after wave, there was not one big wave to be overcome and endured."
Nikki is the black sheep of the Eaton family. She dyes her hair purple, sleeps around and dates married men. But she loves her family deeply. She is in essence the quintessential Oates heroine: one of the walking wounded, Nikki is deeply flawed on a social and maybe moral level but in possession of a soul filled with caring and love.
"Missing Mom" is a novel about just that. As Oates states in the prologue: "This is my story of missing my mother. One day, in a way unique to you, it will be yours, too."

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Oddly compelling, November 27, 2005

By 

J. Marren "jtm497" (Glen Ridge, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Missing Mom: A Novel (Hardcover)

There's nothing dramatic or different about the plot and characters of "Missing Mom," but I couldn't put it down and I'm not sure why! This is the story of an ordinary mom in a very ordinary town in upstate New York, with two very ordinary daughters--an older, competent, settled one and a rebellious, angry younger one. Gwen Eaton, called "Feather" in her youth, is the perfect small town woman, a widow in her late 50's who spends her days in a seemingly endless cycle of visiting relatives, volunteering at various community organizations, and worrying over her daughters. The most extraordinary thing that happens to her is her death, a senseless act of violence that no one can believe happened to her (but then again, have we ever heard anything bad said about a random murder victim?) Nikki the younger daughter goes home, at first to clear out the house, but soon to stay and, in a word, grow up.

"Missing Mom" is the novel Oates wrote after the death of her own mother at the age of 87. I heard Oates speak about it--she views it as very different from her other work, and indeed it is in its clear plain style of writing, and sheer "ordinariness." Oates meticulously details the average middle class life--the food, the house, the clothes, with its secrets that aren't so very different from anyone else's. In the interview Oates explained how she tried to portray the lives of those who don't live in NY or LA, don't talk about literature and art, don't undergo therapy, but simply show their love through everyday small kindnesses.

Nikki discovers how her grandmother and father actually died, and that her mother had suffered through an awful childhood and a broken heart as a young girl. Gwen's tireless efforts to make others happy was her desperate way of staying above it all, floating like a "feather" above the griminess of her life. Seen in this light, Nikki can finally accept her mother's outward perfection.

This is a special book for mothers and daughters, but beware of recommending it to anyone who has recently lost a mom. Oates' descriptions of grief are spot on. I highly recommend this book to anyone who still has a mom--you'll appreciate her more for having read it.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Absorbing, October 30, 2005

By 

Pat (Atlanta, GA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Missing Mom: A Novel (Hardcover)

I became a fan of Joyce Carol Oates after reading "The Falls" and "We Were the Mulvaneys." As with those novels, there is more - 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 original premises with surprise as I continued to read. Oates is a master at drawing her readers into character and plot complexities. This is a book that should not be missed - it is harrowing, heart-rending and, above all, absorbing. You won't be able to put it down until you have read the last page and then you will sit and think about it.