The Misfortune of Marion Palm

Starred review from May 15, 2017
Culliton’s wonderful and sharp debut novel invites readers into the mind and motivations of an unlikable and remarkable woman. Marion has always lived on the cusp of poverty. She develops a talent for sticky fingers and doctoring numbers, assuring a respite from her despair. When Marion meets handsome, rich poet, Nathan Palm, she achieves a dream of financial security and stability. But reality is cruel and Nathan is not as wealthy as she thought, so Marion relies on her talents to support her family and the lifestyle they are accustomed to. Readers meet Marion on the day she abandons her family, headed on the run with $40,000 in a backpack. After years of embezzling funds from her daughters’ private school, Marion has been sent into a panic by a proposed audit. She leaves her husband comically paralyzed, and her daughters, Ginny and Jane, deal with Marion’s departure with angst, rage, and attachments to the imaginary. Culliton’s prose is effortless and wickedly clever; its ability to condone and condemn in the most succinct way is a testament to the author’s storytelling and characterization skills. Moments of empathy are erased by Marion’s entitlement, and her vanishing act is curiously irresistible. This debut novel signals the arrival of an exciting talent. Agent: Claudia Ballard, WME Entertainment.

Starred review from July 1, 2017
Culliton's assured and clever novel reads more like that of a seasoned novelist than a debut. Marion Palm is used to a certain lifestyle. Unfortunately, the European vacations, fancy house, and state-of-the-art exercise equipment have been paid for with money embezzled from her daughters' private school. With the school facing an audit, Marion launches her escape plan, consisting of stuffing $40,000 in cash into a knapsack and leaving. However, she doesn't get very far, and instead ends up in a seedier part of Brooklyn that's fairly near to the very family she abandoned. Her husband, Nathan, a clueless poet, is left with taking care of the day-to-day needs of himself and their daughters, teen Ginny and younger Jane, who are struggling, each in her own way, with their mother's disappearance. Culliton tempers her generally unlikable characters with short chapters, often under three pages; omniscient third-person narration; and oddly comicthink Miranda Julywriting. Readers who have wished the narration of The Royal Tenenbaums was an actual book need look no further than The Misfortune of Marion Palm.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

Starred review from July 1, 2017

Marion Palm's creative accounting skills are about to catch up with her, as the private school where she works (and embezzles) has finally discovered that $180,000 is missing. Quirky and plain, Marion resents her blue-collar background, surrounded as she is by more wealthy New Yorkers. Why shouldn't she have nice things, too? Married to the clueless Nathan, a sometime poet, Marion has long realized that Nathan's trust fund is not as generous as he thinks and has taken matters into her own hands. Now the school board is onto her. She grabs the cash she has hidden in the basement of their Brooklyn brownstone and runs, leaving Nathan to cope with their two daughters, Ginny and Jane, who are also students at the school. But it's hard to get by on cash alone these days. Marion's misadventures don't take her much farther than Coney Island, where she finds a surprising way out of her predicament in the sly conclusion to this darkly funny story. This debut novel has what many others lack: a wicked sense of humor. VERDICT With her mordant wit, deft plotting, and clever storytelling, Culliton is a young novelist to watch. [See Prepub Alert, 2/27/17.]--Leslie Patterson, Rehoboth, MA

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