Mudwoman by Joyce Carol Oates

 

M.R. Neukirchen is a trailblazer, a woman philosopher who is now the first female president of a New England Ivy League university.  Although she is feted for this accomplishment, no one knows the true story of what she has overcome.

She was born into poverty where food wasn't certain on any day.  She lived with a psychotic mother, a sister and various boyfriends of the mother.  One day the mother decides she doesn't want the children anymore.  M.R. is thrown out onto a mudflat, starving, too feeble to climb out.  She is rescued by a fisherman and enters the social service system.  

She is adopted by a Quaker couple and given every material advantage from that point on.  But they change her original name to Meredith Ruth and she comes to realize that to them, she is only a replacement for their daughter who died, also Meredith Ruth.  They pressure her to become a teacher and live in their town forever, but M.R. applies to an Ivy League university and is accepted, and moves on to become an accomplished woman.

But a woman who doesn't believe anyone could every love her.  She has a lover of many years, but he is married and unavailable to her.  The new job is taxing and overwhelming but M.R. refuses to delegate or ask for any help.  As the weeks go by, she moves closer and closer to a nervous breakdown.

Joyce Carol Oates is one of the most prolific American authors.  Her work often has a tinge of the Gothic and this one is in that genre.  There is a relationship with a crow and various supernatural things start to happen.  But it can also be seen as a feminist work, outlining the difficulty of breaking the glass ceiling and the need to overcompensate.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.