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    Bad Marie: A Novel
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    Bad Marie: A Novel
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    Bad Marie: A Novel
    Ebook227 pages3 hours

    Bad Marie: A Novel

    By Marcy Dermansky

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    “Reading Marcy Dermansky’s Bad Marie is like spending a rainy afternoon in a smaller, older movie theater watching a charming French movie with a woman (or a man) you’ve just met on the street and already like far too much. It’s sinful in all the right ways, delicate, seditious, and deliciously evil.” — Frederick Barthelme

    “Dermansky excels at depicting extreme emotional states and how we rationalize them.” —Village Voice

    From the critically-acclaimed author of Twins, Marcy Dermansky, comes a highly original novel of Manhattan, Paris, and Mexico; of love and motherhood; and of life on the lam. Fans of Heather O’Neill (Lullabies for Little Criminals) and A.M. Homes (Music for Torching) will revel in the wicked delights of Bad Marie.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJun 22, 2010
    ISBN9780062000064
    Unavailable
    Bad Marie: A Novel
    Author

    Marcy Dermansky

    Marcy Dermansky is a MacDowell Fellow and the winner of the 2002 Smallmouth Press Andre Dubus Novella Award and the 1999 Story magazine’s Carson McCullers short story prize. Her stories have been published in numerous literary journals, including McSweeney’s, Alaska Quarterly Review, and Indiana Review. Dermansky is a film critic for About.com and lives in Astoria, New York.

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    Reviews for Bad Marie

    4/5

    120 ratings22 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This was one of the strangest books I've ever read. I was torn between hating and pitying Marie. In the end, I just felt sad that no one realized she was such a psychopath. This book read like a bad drug trip that I somewhat enjoyed.
    • 4/5
      Maris is an ex-convict cum nanny who reminds one of the Russian fable about the scorpion and the turtle: Promising not to sting, the scorpion overcomes the turtle's better judgement and scores a ride across the river. Reaching the other side, the scorpion stings and kills the turtle anyway saying in defense, "I am sorry, but I couldn't resist the urge. It's in my nature." There are a few turtles in this story, including Ellen, the childhood friend who hires Marie on; Benoît Doniel, Ellen's husband who has written Marie's favorite book; an Oscar-Award nominated actor who provides Marie a taste of life on the French Riviera... What becomes clear however, is that as Marie goes on the lam, is that these "turtles" have natures and stingers of their own. The only innocent of the story is Marie's charge, the toddler Katy, who attenuates Marie's proclivities. Still, there is a harrowing scene in which it becomes clear that even Katy cannot redeem "Bad Marie" however much we may root for Marie.
    • 3/5
      Well-written, yes, and the character of Marie is sharply drawn. But I disliked the treatment of Ellen, who is unrealistically remote. This stereotypical portrayal of a working mother bugged and ultimately spoiled the book for me.
    • 5/5
      Loved this book!
    • 3/5
      I'm glad this was a quick read. The title prepares for you for what to expect but it was still a train wreck; a well characterized and beautifully detailed train wreck.
    • 3/5
      I was stunned to find I was at the end of this novel, taking a bath in Mexico with no real end in sight. It was ridiculous. What a chicken shit way of getting out of writing a real conclusion! I literally looked and looked through all the last pages of filler to find a decent finale after such a racy story, but it was nothing relevant.

      Even though I enjoyed the story I'm pissed at being left hanging, enough so that I will not be reading any more of Dermansky's novels. What a shame. It's like the author dropped dead right at the best part and never got to complete her otherwise excellent work.
    • 4/5
      With a title like Bad Marie, you might have guessed that this chick Marie is a bit of a hot mess.

      And you would be quite correct, for in the span of 212 pages and - what, a month's time? - Marie manages to get herself into more situations of a criminal nature than one would think would be humanly possible. (Which is probably not much of a surprise, given that Marie is newly-sprung from prison after serving six years as an accomplice in a failed bank robbery.)

      When we first meet Marie, she's 30 years old, just out of prison, working as a nanny for her childhood friend's daughter ... and in a drunken sleep in her friend Ellen's bathtub, with the 2 year old she is responsible for splashing blissfully away in the same tub. That sets in motion the chain of events that is this novel, beginning with Marie's manipulations and machinations to snare Ellen's husband for herself. You see, the husband just so happens to be none other than the French novelist Benoit Doniel, author of Marie's all-time favorite book Virginie at Sea which sustained Marie during her stint in the slammer.

      Don't think Bad Marie didn't know that before landing on her friend's doorstep - and into her tub.

      It sounds all a little far-fetched, but you know what? It all works in this novel. To go into much detail about the plot and Marie's actual crimes would lead to a spoiler-laden review, and I don't want to do that. Just believe me when I say that not much is beneath Marie.

      She's a bit of a maddening-yet-sympathetic character, someone you just want to shake and say "what the hell are you thinking?!?!" Meanwhile, she's taking you on a ride, always with the promise that things will finally work themselves out, and you find yourself feeling a little sorry and compassionate for her at times, which is not at all logical because she is a felon to the nth degree, for God's sakes! The woman has some serious issues going on and probably could benefit from talking with a professional. Some medication might not hurt either.

      We all know someone like this, don't we?

      That's what makes Marie such a flawed but likeable character. We're all guilty of Marie's number one crime: that of believing that things appear better in our fantasies and in our expectations than in our reality. Marie has always wanted to travel to France (with her literary author crush, no less!) but the experience isn't exactly what she was expecting.

      This is a character-rich novel, and Marcy Dermansky does a brilliant job with Marie. But the story is also laden with symbolism. The presence of water and also of milk were symbols that struck me as being particularly poignant. Whenever Marie is in a crisis and unsure what to do, she turns to water as a healing force. Taking a bath, visiting the sea lions at the Central Park Zoo, going on a ride along the Seine, buying a goldfish, wading knee-deep into the ocean, her strong connection to the book Virginie at Sea - these last two bringing to mind Virginia Woolf, her fragile emotional state, her suicide.

      And with the frequent presence of milk - toddler Caitlin's beverage of choice, bowls given as nourishment to a scrawny cat - Dermansky uses milk as a symbol to illustrate that Bad Marie really does have some maternal tendencies, despite the lack of a mother's love in her own life. There's mention of her mother not picking her up when she was released from prison and how she can't go back home to her mother's house; when she needs her mother the most, she's unable to receive the sustenance and nourishment, the protective ambiotic blanket (water) and maternal love (milk) that she craves and desperately holds on to when all else fails.

      Bad Marie may fail as a person, but Bad Marie as a novel is incredibly well-written and captivating. Like others, I read this in just a matter of a couple hours. Started this after dinner and was finished well before bedtime. It's the perfect Read-a-Thon book as the plot moves quickly, the writing is smooth, and the characters are ones who can't help kidnapping you for a few hours and taking you along on their crazy ride.
    • 4/5
      Funny, cynical, and wholly original
    • 4/5
      I see a lot of reviewers, here and elsewhere, excusing Marie her titular "badness" merely because she is easy to relate with, or because everyone else in the novel is worse. This is not a view I can even begin to understand: I felt like Dermansky did a good job of illuminating the alien corners of Marie's psyche, but never once did I manage to empathize with her enough to forget her crimes. Marie's actions are indeed reprehensible, but for me her "badness" lay more completely in her thoughts: her selfishness, immaturity, and narcissism. I don't like to play psychiatrist if the author isn't going to, but seen from the inside Marie's personality is, at the kindest, Borderline and, at the worst, sociopathic.

      The writing quality here is average, plot-driven (I read it back-to-back with "Why Did I Ever," a remarkably poetic book, so the straightforwardness of the prose seemed glaring in comparison); most characters are hastily sketched and completely inexplicable in their motives. I was willing to suspend disbelief on the latter point due to the narration mostly sticking to Marie's self-absorbed head, but since the book invites us to wonder at others' motivation--in particular whyever would Marie's childhood friend invite her into her home and trust her with her toddler in the first place??--it stuck out as a major problem. This is an easy read, with no real philosophical or intellectual challenges: the biggest appeal, for me, was trying to discern what, exactly, in the writing or the characterization made the book palatable at all given Marie's oh-so-badness. I still haven't unpuzzled that one.

      It seems like people are so quick & willing to forgive and identify with Marie on the grounds that she truly loves her charge, the two-year-old girl she kidnaps. This, frankly, baffles me: sure, Marie says constantly that Caitlin is the love of her life, but it's pretty clear that: 1. Marie isn't the most reliable narrator; and (2) Marie's "love" for Caitlin is utterly selfish, based on how it makes her feel rather than the . She thinks she loves Caitlin because Caitlin makes her feel special, and because loving Caitlin and being loved by her is a way to win the apparently lifelong competitive friendship with Ellen; whenever the kid acts like a real, fickle, tired, traumatized baby Marie pendulum-swings to irrational dislike. Hell, she abandons Caitlin on a Mexican beach because the poor, heat-stricken, kidnapped baby screams "no!" to Marie's affection !! I am not saying that this wasn't interesting to read--Marie's relationship with Caitlin was one of the most fascinating aspects of the novel--but it hardly strikes me as a redeeming love, and certainly nothing to soften my heart.

      After considering the above I take back my charge that there is no philosophy in this book, and am upgrading it a star. There is philosophy here: Bad Marie is a clever moral challenge to the reader from the title onwards. Is Marie "bad?" (She doesn't seem to think so.) What, if anything, can exempt and redeem the sort of objectively "bad" behavior (adultery, kidnapping) that Marie engages in? How far are readers willing to compromise their own morals in order to satisfy the innate need to identify with a story's protagonist? These are fascinating questions to me; if I had an ideal bookclub this title would definitely be a pick: it's a book to get a person thinking.
    • 5/5
      Bad Marie hooked me in from the very first minute, and then proceeded to take me on an absolute whirlwind ride of happenstance and luck. It's an amazingly fast read, going much too fast to properly even reflect on the characters or judge their intentions till the end. And bad Marie is certainly a bad girl, though of that rare breed of protagonist that makes you not mind it so much. She lives from one moment to the next with very little forethought or understanding of consequences, and through the power of fiction everything seems to work out for her. But you can't really hate her - it's not that she's particularly likeable, but it would be like hating a stormcloud - she simply operates in her own sphere, and from her point of view (through which we read) she's simply a product of circumstances and chance.
    • 4/5
      I started this on the way home from work yesterday and finished it today at lunchtime. You cannot put it down. The way Dermansky weaves all the plot threads and themes together is breathtaking.
    • 4/5
      Bad Marie is most certainly a character who lives up to the title. She has just gotten out of jail, but her good friend, Ellen Kendall, offers her a job as a live in nanny. Anyone intelligent and emotionally normal person would count her blessings and do her best to be worthy of the helping hand she’s been offered. Not Marie. She drinks on duty, even if it's only at night, endangering Caitlin. That, believe it or not, is only the beginning of the damage she wreaks on that household. It simply doesn't often occur to her that any of her impulsive and illogical decisions are wrong. Bad, bad Marie.Marie was like a tornado destroying everyone and everything in her path. I simply could not look away. I spent much of the time reading Bad Marie trying to diagnose her mental illness. The best I could come up with is to label her as a sociopath. She’s not the stuff of serial killers, but she’ll rip you to shreds emotionally without a second thought. I questioned the decision in hiring a someone fresh out of jail to care for your young daughter and live in your house. For Ellen and her husband, allowing personal history to overshadow logic came with a huge price tag.I am not sure how I feel about Bad Marie. I didn’t like Marie. At the same time, I read this novel compulsively, needing to know what was going to happen. I was holding vigil for Caitlin. Marie's love and care for Caitlin rounded off her rough, mentally ill edges, but I never trusted Marie for a second. She was unpredictable and most certainly not anyone's stereotype. Marcy Dermansky is an engaging, powerful author. Had she not been, this novel would have been oppressive. Instead, it was edgy and interesting. Bad Marie isn't for everyone, but readers interested in sociopaths and have an adventurous streak will find it has much to offer.
    • 5/5
      And, boy, is she bad! I really like this book! It's refreshing to have a character who's completely honest with themselves. Amorality is not so bad to read about. Yet she has standards. I can't give too much away as it will spoil a really interesting story. Just get your hands on it!
    • 5/5
      You have probably seen a lot of reviews of this one already so I will keep it short.Marie has served sex years in prison for harboring a fugitive, her lover who then offed himself in prison. Upon release, Marie shows up on the doorstep of an old frenemy, Ellen, who offers Marie a job as her nanny to two and a half year old Caitlin. Marie discovers Ellen is married to Benoit Doniel, the author of Virginie at Sea, a book that kept Marie sane while in prison.Marie isn't the best nanny, she does like to drink on the job, though she adores Caitlin. After Ellen fires her, Marie seduces Benoit, they take Caitlin and run off to Paris. Now this doesn't really make Marie sound too good. But I, like many other reviewers, could not help but love her. Not an easy feat for an author to do with an ex-felon-husband-seducing-child-kidnapper. And also she steals and lies. But love her I did.As Marie and Caitlin navigate Paris, we see how much Marie loves the little girl. It's very touching and her most redeeming quality.I read this book late at night, then woke up first thing to finish. I only wish it had been longer. Not that it needed to be for the story but I just did not want it to end. I would love a follow up book about Marie.Anyway, there is a reason people are RAVING about this book, a reason why I had to go back and add it to my Best of 2010 reads, posted before I read this book. Go read it NOW and find out why!!my rating 5/5
    • 4/5
      A plot like this could have been extremely contrived and quickly go off the rails, but thanks to Dermansky's solid, crisp writing made this book a 4 star book to me.
    • 4/5
      This is a great novel! I think it would hit even harder if I had children, but it still hit pretty hard. Sex, betrayal, class hatred, theft, plagiarism, kidnapping, childhood, international travel, etcetera. I will definitely seek out Dermansky's first novel 'Twins' and any else she writes in the future.
    • 5/5
      It is true: when you pick up this novel, make sure you have some time to finish it in the same sitting. It's hard to put down. Reading this book is akin to the saying "like watching a train wreck,"--it's hard to look away. Marie is indeed bad and makes the wrong decision every time she has one to make. It's painful to watch. There is humor, though. Not one character in this story has integrity or is at all likable, with the exception of little Caitlin.Two things to be said about this edition: I don't think this cover photo does anything for the story. The person on the cover doesn't look like the author's description, and I don't remember her ever smoking a cigarette. The second thing is that, while I think Marcy Dermansky is pretty gifted, I don't know when it became acceptable for authors to put memes in the back of the book regarding the ideas in the book. It's a little tacky.
    • 1/5
      I read Bad Marie all the way through, but it was more out of a need to finish it then any enjoyment. It started off well, and tangled me into the story in the first few chapters, but sooner than later I ended up disliking the character and wishing it would all just end. The writing isn't good enough to carry a okay plot involving a character so selfish and intolerable that I actually began to hate her, and even if I didn't throw the book down and walk away, there were a few times I wanted too.Bottom line: Had potential, but fizzled out quickly. If there is anything this author is good at, it's writing bad characters... but not in a good way.
    • 5/5
      Marie spent six years in jail, charged with aiding and abetting after her boyfriend robbed a bank, killing one individual. She was convicted on the charges of accessory to murder and bank robbery. Said boyfriend hung himself in jail, so Marie is alone. She survived her time spent in jail in part due to a book she read, Virginie at Sea. Despite her checkered past, Marie’s childhood friend, Ellen, hires her as a nanny for her precocious daughter, Caitlin. Ellen’s husband, Benoit Doniel, just happens to be the author of the book Marie cherish while in prison.Marie is a very rude, selfish, manipulating character. Her one good trait is that she truly loves Caitlin. But when Ellen & Benoit discover Marie & Caitlin asleep in the bathtub, Marie is fired. The only “real” life she has is spinning out of control and she desperately attempts to retain it. When Benoit suggests that they take off for Paris together, Caitlin in tow, Marie readily agrees.The life she was struggling to hold on to continues on a downward spiral, and Marie soon discovers the only person she can rely on is herself, and the love of a little girl.Let me start by saying that there are times that I curse myself for not reading a book sooner. That happened in this case. Within the first few pages, I was hooked, I couldn’t stop reading. I read BAD MARIE in one sitting. It took me two hours to read; I simply couldn’t tear myself away from it. Marie is a character with traits one is meant to dispise, but I found myself enjoying and appreciating her crude behavior. The book starts off with the line: “Sometimes, Marie got a little drunk at work.” Talk about an attention-getting lead sentence! Based on the title alone, one would tend to think that Marie is a bad person. In reality, she is not, just a victim of circumstances. The time she spent in prison, six years of her young life, forever altered how she views friendships, love, relationships as a whole. I feel that she reacted as best she good, given her history and her experience.So, go out and pick up a copy of BAD MARIE now. You won’t regret it.
    • 5/5
      Am I ever glad I came across this gem of a novel. It had caught my eye in my local bookstore, but I didn't feel compelled to buy it until the excellent reviews started populating the blogsphere (see booksexyreview.com, devourer of books ). I started reading it last night and was immediately sucked in (it's a quick read). The writing is direct and engaging. Marie is a character you'll want to keep following even if you want to look the other way.Marie is an attractive thirty year old who was just released from prison (for accessory to murder) after six years and is taking care of an old friend's two year old child, Caitlin. One evening, three weeks into her babysitting stint, Ellen (Caitlin's mother) and her husband (an author whose novel Marie compulsively read in prison) come home to find Marie asleep in the bathtub with Caitlin. And so the drama begins.Marie is bad. She makes poor decisions and destroys every hope she has of living a "normal" life. She is determined to live with no regrets and therefore fails to learn from her mistakes. We watch her screw up again and again as she clings to her lifeline, innocent Caitlin, who Marie comes to doubt can save her.I highly recommend this novel. My only regret is it didn't last longer.
    • 4/5
      Some books grab you right away and others slowly seduce the reader. Marcy Dermansky's novel, Bad Marie, gets you from the first sentence, "Sometimes, Marie got a little drunk at work".Marie is a nanny to her childhood friend Ellen's two-year-old daughter Caitlin. Ellen is a high-powered, hard-charging career woman, and Marie had recently been released after six years in prison for aiding her boyfriend who robbed a bank.Marie loves Caitlin, but when she falls asleep in the bathtub with Caitlin and Ellen and her husband come home, Marie is fired. But not before she seduces the husband, the author of a book that Marie compulsively read in prison. The book, about a suicidal teenage girl who falls in love with a sick sea lion, was a lifeline for Marie, who identified with the girl.Dermansky has created a unique character in Marie; she is all id, with no thought to the consequences of her actions. She never thinks beyond the immediate. It's almost child-like, like Caitlin. I wanted to dislike Marie, and should have, but I found it impossible.I couldn't believe the situations that Marie found herself in, dragging the young Caitlin in tow. This is a book that you will find yourself whipping through to find out what could possibly happen next, yet it is not a plot driven book. It is all about Marie, who is she and how she came to be that way.Water plays a large role in the book; Marie likes to takes baths, but it seems she can never truly cleanse herself. The character in her favorite novel kills herself by walking into the sea.Men fare poorly in this novel. Marie's bank robber boyfriend kills himself in prison; the seduced husband is a weak man, and a fraud. Even the hero movie star turns out to be a cad.Bad Marie is a quick read; the author wastes no words, they are all deliberately chosen to excellent effect. She has said that she was heavily influenced by French films, and the reader can see that influence in this stunning novel. Marie is a role that actresses would kill to play.
    • 3/5
      The Good Stuff Author has a gift for the written word, she's definitely extremely talented fascinating character study Very unusual and a little dark The main character is not a very nice character but you still sort of wish the best for her darkly funny at times The Not so Good StuffIt's not my type of read Dislike most of the characters in the book with the exception of Marie, and quite frankly not sure why I wanted her to suceed, but I'm guessing that is due to the talent of the writer Story just sort of ends. Again I like a more concrete and happy ending but that is just me - don't let it stop you from reading What happens to the cat, hey I'm sensitive when it comes to pets and animals Favorite Quotes/Passages"The situation would have been humiliating had Marie any ambition in life""Marie, of course, had note killed anyone, but the other prisoners had not held this against Marie. It was nothing like jail on television.""She wanted to breathe. She came up for air. It was all very romantic for Virginie to poetically disasppear off the page, but the ending of Virginie at Sea, it was complete and utter bullshit."What I LearnedPrison can be comforting to a certain type of person Paris is not as glamorous as you think The French are rather arrogant and rude Who should/shouldn't readNot for those who like adventure and romance in their books More for the jaded and intellectual reader 3.5 Dewey's