Marcy Dermansky Bad Marie: A Novel (2010)
They were good people who both suffered from lapses in acceptable behaviour.
I sometimes wonder about tacking on the redundant "A Novel" to the end of titles. Is there some doubt here? I read this after having enjoyed the review on (the wonderful) the rejectionist and I was not disappointed. Poor bad Marie - recently released from jail, she is taken in by a school friend as a live-in nanny, but finds herself seducing the husband and taking off with the child to Paris, only to lose her lover to an old flame:
"Who is talking to Daddy?" Caitlin asked.Marie turned to look. She did not know what word to use: bitch, cunt, French actress. Instead she shrugged her shoulders.
Nothing has ever gone right for Marie, and her current trouble is no exception as she finds herself dumped in the City of Love with someone else's child, a mangy cat in a bag, a love of French desserts and a great set of tits:
The channels were all French... until she came to CNN World News. News of the world. Marie could not remember the last time she had taken any interest in anything besides herself. She turned off the television.
And this is the crux: can Marie overcome her own selfishness? Will she survive her self-destructiveness? This is a funny, sexy novella with a wonderful anti-hero heroine.
Marie was thirty years old. Maybe it was time for her to stand on her own.
Rating: 9/10
If you liked this... women who run away and start again with rather more success? With a French setting? Try Anita Brookner's Fraud.
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