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Article: Note-taking is the most important thing for a writer, says Joyce Carol Oates.(Originated from Knight-Ridder Newspapers)
- Article from:
- Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service
- Article date:
- February 5, 1997
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Say whatever you want about Joyce Carol Oates' ``We Were the Mulvaneys'' (Dutton, $24.95). Just don't say anything bad about Muffin.
Muffin, a cat owned by Marianne Mulvaney in the novel, was based on Muffin, a cat owned by Oates when she was a girl.
Muffin is the only purely autobiographical element _ ``the only actual literal reality'' _ that Oates will concede to in the novel, which centers on the Mulvaney family and how the rape of 16-year-old Marianne on Valentine's Day 1976 affects them as a family and individually over the next 17 years.
The rest of it? Well, Oates did grow up on a farm in Lockport in Upstate New York, though ...