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Bezig met laden... The Misfortune of Marion Palm (2017)door Emily Culliton
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Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek. I thoroughly enjoyed this debut novel by Emily Culliton. Are the characters in any way redeeming? Absolutely not and that's okay! It was a light, fun, read and I hope Ms. Culliton follows Marion up with another novel. If you like the writing style of Fredrik Backman I believe you will enjoy this novel as well.It's a very nice palate cleanser if you will. ( ) Mom Embezzles Few people really enjoy living in obscurity. This doesn’t mean that they desire citywide, nationwide, or worldwide visibility. It simply means they would like to be recognized for something, to standout in some way, even if that means being a little bad. And they certainly want their family and friends to see them, perhaps not to praise them but to at least acknowledge they contribute to the general weal. In many ways, Emily Culliton’s Brooklyn mom fits the bill, wallpaper in a family of four, well off but just not well enough, an uneducated misfit in an upper middle class of smarties, a misfit filled with cunning that feeds off a weak or missing moral core. She’s not likable but she’s enjoyable to watch. And that goes for the circle surrounding her: self -absorbed husband Nathan, rebellious daughter Ginny, lonely struggling daughter Jane, worried and infuriated fellow school workers and volunteers. The plot is simple enough. Marion, married to once promising poet Nathan Palm, realizes that his small family inheritance is smaller than she thought when she married him. After spending sprees, children, and expensive private school education for the children, she decides to take advantage of her part time job as sort of comptroller at her daughters’ school and embezzle funds. She has a background, is skillful, and possesses an interest in the criminal practice and women who resort to it. She ups and leaves her family without even a goodbye after she gets wind the schools suspects her. But while good at stealing, she’s not quite as accomplished at navigating herself out of Brooklyn. So, she hides in plain sight and becomes, of all things, a cleaning woman to rich Russians visiting their apartment in Manhattan. Left in the lurch, her family has to learn to adapt, which also means communicating with each other and coping with thoughts of why she left them. They don’t know about her extracurriculars. Prepare for loads of angst, for some growth, and some psychological scarring. Her other family, the school board and coworkers, collectively lose their minds. The story offers up some plot twists, including a decidedly unrealistic and comical one at the end. Culliton tells it with present-tense, declarative sentences, often with character thought bubbles that are non sequiturs revealing aspects of their feelings and preoccupations and provide comedy. It’s an interesting style, but makes for a choppy journey. And, honestly, many will wonder where all this comedy reviewers cite is hiding. All in all, a good debut but not quite as stunning as reviews might lead you to conclude. Mom Embezzles Few people really enjoy living in obscurity. This doesn’t mean that they desire citywide, nationwide, or worldwide visibility. It simply means they would like to be recognized for something, to standout in some way, even if that means being a little bad. And they certainly want their family and friends to see them, perhaps not to praise them but to at least acknowledge they contribute to the general weal. In many ways, Emily Culliton’s Brooklyn mom fits the bill, wallpaper in a family of four, well off but just not well enough, an uneducated misfit in an upper middle class of smarties, a misfit filled with cunning that feeds off a weak or missing moral core. She’s not likable but she’s enjoyable to watch. And that goes for the circle surrounding her: self -absorbed husband Nathan, rebellious daughter Ginny, lonely struggling daughter Jane, worried and infuriated fellow school workers and volunteers. The plot is simple enough. Marion, married to once promising poet Nathan Palm, realizes that his small family inheritance is smaller than she thought when she married him. After spending sprees, children, and expensive private school education for the children, she decides to take advantage of her part time job as sort of comptroller at her daughters’ school and embezzle funds. She has a background, is skillful, and possesses an interest in the criminal practice and women who resort to it. She ups and leaves her family without even a goodbye after she gets wind the schools suspects her. But while good at stealing, she’s not quite as accomplished at navigating herself out of Brooklyn. So, she hides in plain sight and becomes, of all things, a cleaning woman to rich Russians visiting their apartment in Manhattan. Left in the lurch, her family has to learn to adapt, which also means communicating with each other and coping with thoughts of why she left them. They don’t know about her extracurriculars. Prepare for loads of angst, for some growth, and some psychological scarring. Her other family, the school board and coworkers, collectively lose their minds. The story offers up some plot twists, including a decidedly unrealistic and comical one at the end. Culliton tells it with present-tense, declarative sentences, often with character thought bubbles that are non sequiturs revealing aspects of their feelings and preoccupations and provide comedy. It’s an interesting style, but makes for a choppy journey. And, honestly, many will wonder where all this comedy reviewers cite is hiding. All in all, a good debut but not quite as stunning as reviews might lead you to conclude. geen besprekingen | voeg een bespreking toe
Onderscheidingen
"A wildly entertaining debut about a Brooklyn Heights wife and mother who has embezzled a small fortune from her children's private school and makes a run for it, leaving behind her trust fund poet husband, his maybe-secret lover, her two daughters, and a school board who will do anything to find her. Marion Palm prefers not to think of herself as a thief but rather "a woman who embezzles." Over the years she has managed to steal $180,000 from her daughters' private school, money that has paid for European vacations, a Sub-Zero refrigerator, and perpetually unused state-of-the-art exercise equipment. But, now, when the school faces an audit, Marion pulls piles of rubber-banded cash from their basement hiding places and flees, leaving her family to grapple with the baffled detectives, the irate school board, and the mother-shaped hole in their house. Told from the points of view of Nathan, Marion's husband, heir to a long-diminished family fortune; Ginny, Marion's teenage daughter who falls helplessly in love at the slightest provocation; Jane, Marion's youngest who is obsessed with a missing person of her own; and Marion herself, on the lam--and hiding in plain sight"-- Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
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