Mudwoman

by Joyce Carol Oates
I had heard of this author for a long time and thought I should read something by her.

The story starts with MR, a university president being driven to a conference where she is to be the keynote speaker.  She arrives early and her room isn't ready so she decides to rent a car and go for a drive.  Instead of turning back so that she could be back at the conference in time for the dinner/keynote she keeps driving and ultimately crashes the car. No one knows where she is and it  becomes a big news story while she is missing.

Mudwoman is the story of a little girl who is thrown in a mud pit by her Mother who believes she must sacrifice her and her sister to appease God.  The girl is rescued by a trapper.  She is in shock and doesn't say much except the name Jewell so they assume that she is the daughter of a woman who also had a daughter named Jadine.  Both mother and the other girl have disappeared.  Later we learn that this girl is actually Jadine.

She is put in a foster home where she is tormented by the other kids in the family, natural children and other foster kids.  The man who rescued her brings her a beautiful doll.  The other kids take this away from her.  She is treated quite well by the foster family and the woman of the family seems to have a special care for her because of her history.

Eventually the little girl is adopted by a Quaker couple who rename her Meredith Ruth.  They call her Merry.  The girl is very happy with her new parents, they love her and take good care of her.  Eventually she realizes that she doesn't have to worry about her mother coming back for her.  She excels in her studies and her parents are proud of her.

One day Merry father's her father to a cemetery where she sees him laying flowers on a grave of the natural daughter of her adoptive parents.  The tombstone says Meredith Ruth and the birthday is Sept 21st the same day that her adoptive parents assigned to her as no one really knew her birthday or age.
This shocks Merry and she decides to study and get as far away from her parents as we can.

She gets scholarships to Yale? and Harvard and becomes a PhD in Philosopy.  She is highly regarded as an author and academic and is selected as the first woman president of a prestigious NY University.

We then learn that she is a workaholic, carrying on at a crazy pace, she is on the verge of collapse.
Then a student who claims he was attacked on campus and beaten for his conservative views meets with her.  She thinks that she can reason with him because he wants to go to the media and perhaps sue.  She is naive.  He is taping their conversation and pretends that she has attacked him.   She had met with him alone, against the wishes of the University lawyer.   The boy goes to the media but it comes out that he faked an assault report at another educational institution so he is discredited.  He attempts suicide but doesn't succeed.  He suffers permanent brain damage.  MR is devastated by what has happened.

As the story goes on we learn of a high school teacher of hers who wanted to have a relationship with her but she rebuffed him and he supposedly had a nervous breakdown or committed suicide, we also learn of an affair she is having with a married man. 

While I could initially have some sympathy for the character at the beginning considering what she had suffered as her life goes on... she abandons her parents, she decides to go to her lover after his wife kicks him out etc.  I really did not like the way the book ended.

While I think the book had a lot of potential and was well written I was disappointed in how the author handled the last part of the book.

Based on this book and other comments I have since read about her writing I don't think I will read anything else by her.