WE WERE THE MULVANEYS

Oates's critically acclaimed 26th novel concerns forty years in the lives of the Mulvaney family, whose idyllic, God-fearing life in rural New England begins to unravel after the rape of their teenaged daughter. The story of how knee-jerk WASP values fare against the trials of modern life consumes these heart-tugging pages. Narrator Scott Shina has a suitably ingenuous, bucolic tone, though of the South rather than the Northeast. He gives a respectable delivery of the crust of his text, but misses the meat of it. Y.R. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/MAY 02]