To Die For (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: rat fink, clam flats, Suzanne Maretto, Barbara Walters, Jimmy Emmet (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A ruthlessly ambitious young woman recruits three high school misfits to kill her husband in Maynard's carefully constructed but somewhat unconvincing fact-based fiction, a Literary Guild selection in cloth.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

Perky, aspiring newscaster Suzanne Maretto persuades her teenaged lover and his buddy to kill her straight-arrow husband; just deserts follow for all. Suzanne, who thinks that ``if people could just be on TV all the time, the whole human race would probably be a much better group of individuals,'' sets out to captivate the none-too-bright kids she's interviewing for a demo tape that'll get her out of her local (suburban Boston) station and onto the network fast track. There's Jimmy Emmet, who worships her as stupidly as does her hapless restaurant-family husband Larry; Russell Hines, who's just in it for the thousand dollars; and Lydia Mertz, who's so hopelessly smitten with Suzanne's big-sister glamour that she's willing to supply the gun. But the real culprits, as bestselling author/media-child Maynard (Baby Love, 1981; Domestic Affairs, 1987, etc.) keeps screaming in an amusingly flat series of self-revealing monologues, are Malibu Barbie, Victoria's Secret, Wheel of Fortune, abusive (or adoring) parents, and Donahue--all the accoutrements of cut-rate acculturation that give her characters such venal dreams and mindless determination. Maynard's ear for sincere garbage (``We're so connected, I can taste her Tic Tac,'' boasts Jimmy after Suzanne deflowers him) is as sharp as ever, but after 50 pages of such homogeneous stuff you'll start looking for the exit--unless, of course, your own taste for pulp romances of sex, power, and violence are just as depraved as the ones so lovingly excoriated here. What's most offensive here, as in Bret Easton Ellis's notorious American Psycho, is the raised-nostril pretense that this revolted attack on pop culture, already due for serialization in Penthouse, stands above it all. A more penetrating writer could have a field day analyzing recent popular fiction's disavowal of the tawdry culture that continues to grip it as tightly as Suzanne holds Jimmy. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Signet (September 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451186079
• ISBN-13: 978-0451186072
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,695,520 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a scathing satire of our tv obsessed culture, May 25, 2004

By	Poppydowns "poppydowns" (Tucson, AZ United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: To Die For (Paperback)

Anyone who would read this book and think it was just a novelization of the Pam Smart story probably watches too many movies of the week on LifetimeTV. This book takes the idea of what happened in the Smart case and uses it as a skeleton to write a sharp and darkly funny FICTIONALIZED look at our society's obsession with television and celebrity.When this book was turned into a movie, a local t.v. station ran an interview with Pam Smart who was uspet about her portrayal in the film. It wouldn't have come as such a surprise to her if she had bothered to read the book. And why would she be upset if she didn't care about fame (or rather infamy)? Don't read this book and wonder how much of it is about Pam Smart but read it wonder how much of it is about our country, our neighbors and ourselves.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A GOOD NOVELIZATION OF THE PAM SMART STORY, September 1, 2000

By	BeatleBangs1964 (United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

There is no doubt about it. This story screams Pam & Greg Smart at you. The infamous teacher who got her high school lover to kill her husband takes a starring role in this book. Pam Smart is called "Suzanne Marretto," and her tastes run to the high school crowd.

Suzanne convinces her underage lover to kill for her and he does so willingly. She teams up with the lover, his friend and a lonely, overweight girl who has not found her niche among her peers.

Suzanne did some incredibly stupid things. For example, she videotapes the kids hanging out at her house after her husband is killed; she has sex with the young boy while the girl waits downstairs. It is like she wants to be caught and is waiting to be called on her bizarre behavior.

Joyce Maynard did a sterling job of telling this story and it is an honor to her writing prowess that this work reappeared in movie form with a very stellar cast.

Joyce Maynard is here to stay. I have loved her works since I was in high school and many of her articles have appeared in TV Guide and other mainstream magazines. She really has a flair for place, voice and character development.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A clever re-working of the Pamela Smart Story!, February 11, 1999

By A Customer

Loosely based on the life of the New Hampshire schoolteacher (Pam Smart) who seduced two teenage boys into killing her dull husband, To Die For is a fun novel that fictionalizes a much talked about crime that made headlines a few years ago. Another case of where the book is much, much better than the movie (although the film by Gus Van Sant- starring Nicole Kidman as Suzanne, Matt Dillon as Larry, Casey Affleck as Russell and Joaquin Phoenix as Jimmy- did have its good moments), To Die For is easily one of my favorite books. Such a great book that it's inspiring me to maybe write a fictionalized story based on that lethal Long Island Lolita, Amy Fisher.