Customer Reviews

Bad Marie: A Novel (P.S.)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

I used to work as a nanny myself and I thoroughly enjoyed this fabulous fantasy novel. Which is exactly what it is. I take the whole novel as a sort of romp through the wilderness of wicked thoughts and fantasy that we nannies often have when faced with another day of giving tireless affection and attention, very often for employers who seem to little value our effots. This book is an outlet for the question: What would it be like to steal the trappings of a more "successful" life instead of simply accepting being the hired help? To consume the material gratifications of and even try to get inside the pretty postcard image of lives and relationships seemingly designed by catalogues and recorded in the countless photo albums of wealthy New York homes?

The narrative of "Bad Marie" might exist entirely in the heroine's mind; I half expected it to conclude with a camera pulling back, so to speak, on Marie having daydreamed the entirety of her crimes. I was very glad it didn't. The book, slim as it is, has a hefty and satisfying impact. It follows Marie down some grim passages, as fantasy turns into unexpected disaster upon disaster, but the serene determination of our heroine is fascinating and not at all realistic, which is precisely why the book is so much fun.

Bad Marie is a bad influence. I say this because while reading Marcy Dermansky's second novel, Bad Marie, I was driven to do something that I, as a mother of a small, active child, never do anymore--and that is stay up past 11PM reading, which should tell you something about how engrossing this novel is if even an exhausted mother will stay up late reading it.

It is that good.

So what about Marie? Who is she? She's a nanny. She's an ex-con. She's a screw up. She's also got a big, twisted heart that wants love and healing and happiness and yet all of the people she's ever loved have let her down; basically, Marie makes bad choices about who to love. Except for one. And that one is the little kid she babysits for, Caitlin. And in this relationship between caregiver and child is the crux of the story.

Of course, being a two-year-old there is one crucial moment when Caitlin does disappoint Marie because she cannot possibly respond in an adult. In that moment, Marie first decides to respond in her typical way, but finds she can't do it. She has grown. She has learned to put this child's needs above her own. And that, my friends, is pretty close the love a parent feels.

Okay, so Marie is still not technically doing the right thing in that she kidnapped Caitlin from first her mother and then her father, but her heart is eventually in the right place. Ultimately, she does feel guilt and does want what's best for Caitlin; she just lacks the skills to figure out how do the right thing.

Here is a book that is both literary and plot driven, humorous and heartbreaking. Here is a book that makes you feel for the protagonist despite the horrible things she does. After all, she is still that hard luck kid whose friend's mother took pity. Okay, she is a grown up and she's doing a horrible thing by keeping this child from her parents, but, in the end, her intentions are sort of good. In the end, I believe she will bring Caitlin home.

This is not to say I want to befriend Marie or have her watch my kid (and sleep with my husband), but I do understand her a bit more. I do feel for her. With that said, I was extremely anxious as I read the final 20 or so pages of this book and felt that I constantly needed to make sure that my kid was okay. As such, I finished the book sitting on the couch next to him as he watched Cyberchase with his bare feet tucked up under my leg to keep them warm. I did not want to let him out of my sight.

All this is to say, it's a book that stirs up a lot of complex emotion and it's a brave book. There are readers, I'm sure, who will judge the book solely on the actions of the character. If they did so, they would be missing out. Bad Marie is a book you will not want to miss.

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

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.

Less immediately endearing than Dermansky's debut, "Twins," but ultimately just as haunting, "Bad Marie" is a (quick) slow burn that, among other achievements, deftly parodies the notion that babies make nice accessories. It's almost scary how bluntly Dermansky examines taboo notions...that laziness can be a viable life choice, that prison is arguably more appealing than coping with adult responsibilities, and that Paris is not all it's cracked up to be.

A hard-drinking ex-convict fresh out of prison, Marie takes a job as a nanny and soon runs off to Paris with the little girl and the French husband, who turns out to be the author of her favorite book--a novel about a lonely girl in love with a sea lion--that she discovered in prison. Marie is selfish, rebellious, and proudly immature--she wears purple Converse high tops as proof--but she is also profoundly romantic and naive, making one bad decision after another, so that you sympathize with her as she self destructs. It is a fast, dry-witted, and subversively touching story about privilege, entitlement, and the price of envy.

I started this book and read it straight through without stopping in about two hours. I simply couldn't put it down.

Marie is the most interesting character I've read in a long while. Now I want to grab a copy of Twins, but since I need to go to bed now, I'll wait until tomorrow for fear I'll stay up another two hours!

One mark of good writing is crafting likable characters. Another mark, and a more difficult one I think, is the crafting of thoroughly unlikable characters that you actually want to keep reading about. Marie is one such character.

Marie just got out of prison for being an accessory to bank robbery. She gets a nanny position with a former childhood friend she wronged long ago and sleeps with her husband, the French author of Marie's favorite book. Marie runs away to France with the husband and then kidnaps the lovable little girl Caitlin that she is supposed to be babysitting. Through the whole thing we are inside Marie's mind where it all seems to make sense in some twisted way. Marie is not mean or vindictive. She just does things in the ways that make sense to her. Many people will not like or "get" this book. I did not like the characters in "Bad Marie" personally, but they are fascinating in a very different way and they kept me reading to the very end.

"Bad Marie" reminded me a bit of the excellent book "The Curious Incident of The Dog In The Night-Time" by Mark Haddon in that the main character is very much an outsider and does things the way that makes sense in his own mind. In that case the main character has Asperger's Syndrome, and we gain amazing insight into the way he thinks by living inside his head for the duration of the book. In "Bad Marie," whatever condition Marie has is not specified, but it is fascinating trying to make sense of it and of her logic.

I think that many people will be uncomfortable with Marie's actions because they are not labeled. Most people feel more comfortable with labels, such as "Oh, she has Asperger's Syndrome," or "Marie is bipolar," or the like. There are no such easy labels here. It is up to us to be the detective on Marie's psyche, and it makes us work. It makes us think on our own instead of spelling it all out for us, and that is a good thing. Marie is unlikable and because of this she sticks in our memories, bugging us until we somehow make sense of her actions. There are no easy answers here. "Bad Marie" challenges us as readers and disturbs us. Being disturbed shakes us up and forces us to think. This kind of thinking makes us uncomfortable, and maybe that is what disturbs us most of all.

Warning: there is a scene with a cat that is neglected that, as a pet owner, upset me a good bit. Just remember that this is a work of fiction and that the scene serves to further illustrate the mindset of the characters in the book.

I disliked this book, but I give it 2 stars instead of 1 because it was very readable and I did want to get to the end to find out what ultimately happens. Unfortunately, I didn't really find anything out at the end, which was a disappointment. I feel the author went too far with Marie and the story overall, it was hardly, if ever believable. Had this been a movie, I think it would be fantastic, full of drama and excitement, however I didn't feel that while reading the book, my general impression was, how is this possible?? Even the cover of the book is misleading, the girl with a cigarette in her hand, with short hair is clearly not Marie, who has long hair and doesn't smoke. I know that's a minor detail, but it just added to the fact that I felt fooled the whole way through. A child gets kidnapped and it seems as though no one is looking for her, Marie's just strolling around, being a hot mess, making a spectacle of herself everywhere she goes. Come on. I'd like to see this book be made into a movie, I think that's what it should have been in the first place.