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The Misfortune of Marion Palm
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.
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.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published August 8, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 558 reviews
July 20, 2017
Marion Palm and her husband are both rather despicable, for very different reasons, and they are further surrounded by pretty despicable adults. In this web of distasteful people, even the couple's children are portrayed as innocents, perhaps, but with deeply rooted issues that will make them, it is hinted, rather distasteful adults in turn. In the entire book, there was only one character that was relateable, a nameless detective who took up maybe 15 pages or so of the entire novel.
So then the question becomes: is this a great enough book to survive the unpleasantness of its characters? To make you root for the criminals? It's clear that other readers have decided yes, but I felt the answer was no. And that's the difference between my rating and theirs, I suppose. I just didn't enjoy any of my time with the characters, and there was no overarching message, no great themes, no poetic arc that would make the book otherwise worthwhile. The writing style is jerky and jumps from one point of view to another. Whether or not a reader enjoys the book probably has a lot to do with how much they agree with the author's assertion, made early in the book and then over and over again (as if repetition would make it true), that women who embezzle are doing it to fight injustice. Marion Palm feels slighted by the world, so she embezzles, and that is her fight against great wrongs. I just don't buy it. Which leaves Marion as simply a pathetic figure with clepto-like tendencies. Eh. I'll pass.
I got a free copy to review from First to Read.
So then the question becomes: is this a great enough book to survive the unpleasantness of its characters? To make you root for the criminals? It's clear that other readers have decided yes, but I felt the answer was no. And that's the difference between my rating and theirs, I suppose. I just didn't enjoy any of my time with the characters, and there was no overarching message, no great themes, no poetic arc that would make the book otherwise worthwhile. The writing style is jerky and jumps from one point of view to another. Whether or not a reader enjoys the book probably has a lot to do with how much they agree with the author's assertion, made early in the book and then over and over again (as if repetition would make it true), that women who embezzle are doing it to fight injustice. Marion Palm feels slighted by the world, so she embezzles, and that is her fight against great wrongs. I just don't buy it. Which leaves Marion as simply a pathetic figure with clepto-like tendencies. Eh. I'll pass.
I got a free copy to review from First to Read.
July 4, 2017
The last book I read, The Rumor, a publisher tells a novelist with a wayward wife, "For once let the heroine be happy, not good."
This advice was followed by Culliton. It's a strong story with equally strong characters, but not necessarily a nice story with nice characters. There's meat on the bones here. The women (young and old) meet life head-on...an older sister tells the younger sister, "Kick all the boys you want." Certainly not the makings of nice girls!
I could have used another 50 pages or so about the politics of the school board. That's something all PTA parents can relate with.
I read an ARC, and if there's one thing I'd strongly suggest is, Change That Cover. There's a sense of humor here, that it's a madcap adventure, a comedy of errors with all that bright, bright yellow. But that doesn't fit the story. It needs a serious cover, not a cartoonish one.
And hey, while I'm suggesting things that can't be changed, I'd change the title too. Marion doesn't for one moment consider her life a series of misfortunes. She is in control, in charge and has a plan on a clipboard. (And BTW, I checked because I always thought Marion was for males and Marian was for females, but nope, girls can be Marions too.) C'mon, the woman's name is Palm, and she embezzles money (not a spoiler), so how about crossing palms, or greasing palms, or green palms, or money grows on Marion Palm? Marion's Palm long money line? Or, the Misfortune of Nathan Palm? (the husband)
Looking forward to more from Culliton.
This advice was followed by Culliton. It's a strong story with equally strong characters, but not necessarily a nice story with nice characters. There's meat on the bones here. The women (young and old) meet life head-on...an older sister tells the younger sister, "Kick all the boys you want." Certainly not the makings of nice girls!
I could have used another 50 pages or so about the politics of the school board. That's something all PTA parents can relate with.
I read an ARC, and if there's one thing I'd strongly suggest is, Change That Cover. There's a sense of humor here, that it's a madcap adventure, a comedy of errors with all that bright, bright yellow. But that doesn't fit the story. It needs a serious cover, not a cartoonish one.
And hey, while I'm suggesting things that can't be changed, I'd change the title too. Marion doesn't for one moment consider her life a series of misfortunes. She is in control, in charge and has a plan on a clipboard. (And BTW, I checked because I always thought Marion was for males and Marian was for females, but nope, girls can be Marions too.) C'mon, the woman's name is Palm, and she embezzles money (not a spoiler), so how about crossing palms, or greasing palms, or green palms, or money grows on Marion Palm? Marion's Palm long money line? Or, the Misfortune of Nathan Palm? (the husband)
Looking forward to more from Culliton.
August 15, 2017
Another story about terrible people, with a protagonist whom we're supposed to cheer on (I think?) just because they surrender to their worst impulses and don't love anything or anyone. This is a mediocre book about owning and celebrating the worst parts of yourself. Short but exhausting.
July 17, 2017
Thank you Penguin Random House for the ARC.
Marion Palm is a criminal. She embezzles money. But how she does it and what happens turns into a very entertaining story.
Marion Palm is a criminal. She embezzles money. But how she does it and what happens turns into a very entertaining story.
May 30, 2017
Marion Palm has been embezzling money from her daughters' school, and, one day, picks up and leaves her family. Day by day, we follow her husband, Nathan, her children, Ginny and Jane, Marion's colleagues and the administrators at the school, the detective on the case, and others in a wonderful and motley crew of characters as they struggle to figure out what happened to Marion. Virtually no one in this novel is particularly likable, and that is absolutely part of the charm.
Readers may feel compelled to connect this novel with WHERE'D YOU GO, BERNADETTE, and I would simply warn that the humor and levity that many found so appealing about that book is absent in MARION PALM. Instead, through spare, stripped-down prose, which purposefully lets the reader feel like a voyeur looking in on the slow burn train wreck that is the Palm family, we learn, layer by layer, more about Marion Palm, with each small reveal so satisfying in creating the larger picture. Even better: the ending is absolute perfection.
Readers may feel compelled to connect this novel with WHERE'D YOU GO, BERNADETTE, and I would simply warn that the humor and levity that many found so appealing about that book is absent in MARION PALM. Instead, through spare, stripped-down prose, which purposefully lets the reader feel like a voyeur looking in on the slow burn train wreck that is the Palm family, we learn, layer by layer, more about Marion Palm, with each small reveal so satisfying in creating the larger picture. Even better: the ending is absolute perfection.
October 19, 2017
It's not funny.
I was promised a comedic read, and I was expecting something like Forrest Gump, or the 100 Year-Old Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared. Tragic characters, in tragic circumstances, with honest adventures, and feel good moments.
Instead I got a woman abandoning her children, a husband with 2 mistresses, children suffering breakdowns to the point where a 13 year-old decides to start drinking. There is nothing funny here. There isn't any wit or lessons learned.
It becomes a boring romp through Brooklyn. I'm not from the city, care very little about the lay out, but felt I needed a huge crash course in everything New York to understand this. The world does not begin and end at New York.
I don't think the people with the blurbs actually read the book, I don't think they read anything but the first chapter (to get a gist of the plot) before writing the book jacket, and when they showed it to the author, they took her picture, and that is the picture they used in the book. Even she doesn't seem to want anything to do with this dumpster fire of a book.
I was promised a comedic read, and I was expecting something like Forrest Gump, or the 100 Year-Old Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared. Tragic characters, in tragic circumstances, with honest adventures, and feel good moments.
Instead I got a woman abandoning her children, a husband with 2 mistresses, children suffering breakdowns to the point where a 13 year-old decides to start drinking. There is nothing funny here. There isn't any wit or lessons learned.
It becomes a boring romp through Brooklyn. I'm not from the city, care very little about the lay out, but felt I needed a huge crash course in everything New York to understand this. The world does not begin and end at New York.
I don't think the people with the blurbs actually read the book, I don't think they read anything but the first chapter (to get a gist of the plot) before writing the book jacket, and when they showed it to the author, they took her picture, and that is the picture they used in the book. Even she doesn't seem to want anything to do with this dumpster fire of a book.
June 18, 2017
Marion Palm is on the lam. That's the first line. But how she came to embezzle $180,000 from her daughters' school coffers while working in their development office comes out in this witty, episodic novel which is told in explosive little bursts. At times she's front and center, at times, her increasingly feral daughters and trust fund husband who finds a new identity in the form of a blogger. Why Marion did what she did, how this affects her family -- it all comes together sort of like a Chuck Close painting that takes on cohesion the further away you move from it. Not only are the four central characters well defined, but all the supporting players too. And I love a New York story that could only happen there, this one in particular making the most of Brooklyn.
September 7, 2018
2-3*s I was hoping for Kathy Bates in her Towanda The Avenger incarnation, and that may be partially responsible for my total disenjoyment ( surprised to find that's actually a word). IMO, almost all of the characters, with the possible exception of Marion, were just a set of behaviors rather than people.
November 15, 2021
The book that depresses one about what a novel means today.
It means a privileged New Yorker who steals--no, not Winona Ryder--and has no quirks deemed likable, stories deemed literary or important or interesting, is actually more of a Karen than a Marion, if you catch my drift. It means everyone in the book is depressed because money makes one so. And boring. They are boring and seek escape--from New York City--ha! And--listen, the woman just leaves her family. And has no validation for it, seeks no redemption. That a family like the Palms do exist, in their bubble of upper class nothing--she does nothing to win that privilege other than being, well, you know...--is as dull as anything. I label this as: Couldn't Care Less!
It means a privileged New Yorker who steals--no, not Winona Ryder--and has no quirks deemed likable, stories deemed literary or important or interesting, is actually more of a Karen than a Marion, if you catch my drift. It means everyone in the book is depressed because money makes one so. And boring. They are boring and seek escape--from New York City--ha! And--listen, the woman just leaves her family. And has no validation for it, seeks no redemption. That a family like the Palms do exist, in their bubble of upper class nothing--she does nothing to win that privilege other than being, well, you know...--is as dull as anything. I label this as: Couldn't Care Less!
March 14, 2017
The most controlled prose I've read in a while. Trouble is, it's airtight- there's almost no breathing room.
This is a Coen Bros. take on Maria Semple, but Ms. Culliton seems to mistake objectivity for verisimilitude, and/or maturity— it would have been better as a first-person, more skewed narrative. The writer's approach strips the story of most of its inherent humor.
(And the chapters! Good Lord, not every 2 pages needs a thundering title. Is this a novel, or a series of short stories?)
I find that the function of (me reading) so much fiction about the moral bankruptcy of contemporary affluence is to realize how good my life is by comparison. And not because I derive pleasure from that; though it is a feeling might be mistaken for mere schadenfreude. Fiction, however, produces empathy.
When this kind of story is told in third-person, the danger is not that the reader feel superior, but pity. By itself, pity is no more than rubbernecking at the wreck in the opposite lanes. A writer should ask herself not only if she is capable of telling her story and if it is appealing to readers, but why she wants to tell it.
Ms. Culliton's first novel reads quickly and shows some promise. Three stars because I hope she'll get a chance to publish another. I'd certainly pick it up.
p.s. Wonder if you will about the protagonist's fate, but I believe it's there in the title.
This is a Coen Bros. take on Maria Semple, but Ms. Culliton seems to mistake objectivity for verisimilitude, and/or maturity— it would have been better as a first-person, more skewed narrative. The writer's approach strips the story of most of its inherent humor.
(And the chapters! Good Lord, not every 2 pages needs a thundering title. Is this a novel, or a series of short stories?)
I find that the function of (me reading) so much fiction about the moral bankruptcy of contemporary affluence is to realize how good my life is by comparison. And not because I derive pleasure from that; though it is a feeling might be mistaken for mere schadenfreude. Fiction, however, produces empathy.
When this kind of story is told in third-person, the danger is not that the reader feel superior, but pity. By itself, pity is no more than rubbernecking at the wreck in the opposite lanes. A writer should ask herself not only if she is capable of telling her story and if it is appealing to readers, but why she wants to tell it.
Ms. Culliton's first novel reads quickly and shows some promise. Three stars because I hope she'll get a chance to publish another. I'd certainly pick it up.
p.s. Wonder if you will about the protagonist's fate, but I believe it's there in the title.
February 2, 2019
So many review blurbs on the back cover call this book “funny.” I didn’t think it was funny at all. It was bleak and depressing. Well-written and a good story, but not what I’d call funny.
April 9, 2017
I am a bit conflicted about this book. I didn't feel any affinity with any of the characters, despite the Brooklyn neighborhoods as the setting. Marion is not a sympathetic character, leaving her family after embezzling funds. The family is so dysfunctional that it's like a train wreck you can't turn away from, with a unique style of writing by the author. I like quirky, but not quite as depressing as the Palms.
July 18, 2017
A dark comedy that in it's outlook and gimlet look at class distinctions reminds me of Beryl Bainbridge's The Bottle-Factory Outing, with millennial Brooklyn standing in for early 70s London. Stylistically Emily Culliton's voice -- distant, observant, yet somehow still warm -- evoked Elizabeth Crane. There were times I felt like the book was too sad to keep on reading, yet I kept coming back to it and loved the ambiguity of the ending. Not a book for everyone, but one that slightly more adventurous readers with a taste for bleak satire will be rewarded by on several levels.
August 2, 2017
This may not have been for me.
August 16, 2017
I didn't quite know what to expect when I picked up author, Emily Culliton's, debut novel, THE MISFORTUNE of MARION PALM (Knopf). All I knew is that it was heralded one of those must-reads at BookExpo and it's been written up in just about every magazine as a must, must be read!
Marion Palm steals money - from people and institutions, doesn't matter. But she doesn't like to think of herself as thief, but rather "a woman who embezzles." Over the years she's managed to steal $180,000 from her daughters' private school. She's used a lot of the money to pay for all kinds of things the Palms don't necessarily need - trips, exercise equipment, a fancy top-of-the-line refrigerator.
Marion is married to Nathan Palm. He lives off his great-grandfather's trust, published a book of poems years ago, and can't seem to write another word. Their two daughters, 13 year-old, Ginny and 8 year-old, Jane like to climb the tree in the backyard and peer into other people's homes.
One day, Marion Palm decides to leave her husband and children behind in Brooklyn Heights. She stuffs the $40,000 she has left from the $180,000 into one of her daughters' knapsacks. With the cash safely stashed, she takes Ginny and Jane to a Greek restaurant. When they're finished, she sends her girls out of the restaurant and then she escapes without paying the $27 check. On the sidewalk, they part ways.
From then on, Marion Palm is on the lam, roaming the streets, hanging out in Apple stores. She leaves Nathan, Ginny and Jane to deal with detectives and really angry school board members who realize she's embezzled from them and want to talk - now!
Marion navigates between Brooklyn, Manhattan and finally Coney Island, where she rents a room from Sveyta. Once Marion meets Sveyta things go downhill pretty fast. Russians don't like their money unknowingly misappropriated.
The narrative of THE MISFORTUNE of MARION PALM alternates between Marion, hopeless Nathan, Ginny, who just wants to be in love and Jane, who is obsessed with an invisible boy. The chapters are short, the writing pithy and the irony smacks you in the face unmercifully.
I loved THE MISFORTUNE of MARION PALM. Reading Emily Culliton's, novel reminded me of the brilliant writer, Lydia Davis, who never leaves an unneeded word on a page.
I simply cannot wait until her next novel.
September 30, 2017
This book was a strange read for me. First off, it took me a LONG time to read, weeks... however, something kept pulling me in. The tension line of Marion and her misdeeds proved subtly riveting, yet the book lacked something overall. I believe, from an editorial standpoint, it had to do with the overuse of the verb "to be" and these non-descriptive verbs slowed the book down. Culliton is a talented writer, and she apparently has or is working toward a PhD in fiction and it shows. For a first novel, she's done an impressive job. However, my recommendation would be that she study poetry more and use more descriptive verbiage. Otherwise, she develops the characters well and knows Brooklyn extremely well.
September 8, 2017
This is a bizarre book. It doesn't have enough forward direction or fully-fleshed characterization on paper, but yet I kept reading, and I did think, "Okay, well, there was something here," but I've yet to quite decipher what that something was. Marion is a troubled, strange, but standoffish sort of character to follow, and I can see glimmers of a fascinating look at what happens when a mother decides she needs to change her life and change it big, going from small subversions to One Big One. I just wish I'd gotten more of that, or more of anything else really, and this would have been a good story instead of a merely serviceable, moderately entertaining, but too-hollow one.
Read
January 12, 2018This compelling novel tells the story of a mother who, upon embezzling from her children’s school, which she also works at, goes on the run to avoid being caught. This entails leaving behind her husband and two daughters. Throughout the book you see, from multiple perspectives not only how her actions and the fallout from them impact her, her family and their community, but also what led to her embezzlement in the first place. It is fascinating to see the fallout and how everyone deals with it in their various ways. Also; the book ends in an unexpected way and it is refreshing when a book’s story does not follow the typical paths one would. The one major flaw is that the books format of switching between perspectives is somewhat jarring at times, especially when one is engrossed in one perspective’s storyline and wants to see what happens next. Even so, this is an interesting novel and one that will keep the reader’s interest from start to finish.-- Madeline C.
November 29, 2017
This was a story about a completely dysfunctional family. It held my interest because of the craziness.
July 16, 2017
The Palm family is not nice. A trust fund baby, Nathan Palm is only interested in satisfying his own needs. His wife, Marion, steals money from a Brooklyn private school to finance her departure from her family and any motherly responsibilities. Marion abandoned, their daughters, Ginny and Jane, at a restaurant, when she ran out on them and the check. No wondered they are self-absorbed and acting out. Overall, the characters are superficial with few if any redeeming qualities. Misfortune is usually about when bad things happen to good people. This story is about people without a moral compass who continue to do without any consequence. The only bright spot in when the book ends.
Goodreads Giveaway randomly chose me to receive this book. Although encouraged, I was under no obligation to write a review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
Goodreads Giveaway randomly chose me to receive this book. Although encouraged, I was under no obligation to write a review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
August 10, 2017
I did not particularly enjoy this quirky novel. The writing lacked description or depth, unfolding the story in a choppy, unimaginative manner.
Over the years, Marion Palm embezzled money from the private school her children attended and she worked for part-time. And then she left. A bizarre, poorly planned exit, leaving behind her family to become increasingly odd. Every character in the novel seemed to be mildly apathetic and unusual. The plot moved great distances in short, tight chapters.
Unfortunately I'd recommend giving this one a pass.
1.5/5 stars
Over the years, Marion Palm embezzled money from the private school her children attended and she worked for part-time. And then she left. A bizarre, poorly planned exit, leaving behind her family to become increasingly odd. Every character in the novel seemed to be mildly apathetic and unusual. The plot moved great distances in short, tight chapters.
Unfortunately I'd recommend giving this one a pass.
1.5/5 stars
September 26, 2017
The marketing for The Misfortune of Marion Palm promises wit and humor. Sadly, I find neither in the book. It is a sad snapshot of a family with unlikable characters who generate neither interest nor empathy. The marketing also promises an adventurous "bad girl" heroine. I am all for "bad girl" heroines to cheer for. However, I find myself not cheering for this one.
Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2017...
Reviewed for Penguin First to Read program.
Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2017...
Reviewed for Penguin First to Read program.
October 19, 2017
I must be losing me sense of humor because I didn't find this amusing one bit. On the contrary, I was annoyed with Marion and her dynamics to buy a ticket in order to escape. Why would you have to pull out $500 dollars to pay for a $20+ ticket?
And, you are embezzling money but don't have a plan for when you are found out? And when you do run away you do so leaving your 8 year old daughter behind? Why? You never loved the child?
I thought the book was self published but no, it is not; which makes me ask, what's up with the cheap cover?
And, you are embezzling money but don't have a plan for when you are found out? And when you do run away you do so leaving your 8 year old daughter behind? Why? You never loved the child?
I thought the book was self published but no, it is not; which makes me ask, what's up with the cheap cover?
June 18, 2017
This book was more style over substance. The shifting perspectives and present tense are interesting choices, but the story itself fell flat. Marion only got interesting in the last 1/3 of the book; everyone else felt like cardboard cut-outs.
July 10, 2018
all the characters were awful and faced no consequences which made me feel like the book didn't have any point. this isn't a problem in and of itself but it is a problem when its also no fun.
February 17, 2018
For a book that I waited quite a while for through the holds at my library, this didn’t live up to the wait or hype. This debut novel is about Marion Palm who embezzles from her daughters’ school and then takes off. That’s about the sum of it. The story plot was bland and the characters were very one dimensional. The one thing I can say it was a quick read.
June 7, 2018
The best thing I can say about the book: I just wanted to just lounge around eating popcorn and reading it for hours.
The harshest thing I can say about the book: It was a book making fun of entitled people in Brooklyn, written by...a person from Brooklyn.
The harshest thing I can say about the book: It was a book making fun of entitled people in Brooklyn, written by...a person from Brooklyn.
May 31, 2020
This book was not what I expected. I wanted it to end with more justice.
August 23, 2017
I'd love for Marion to team up with Martin from Matthew Dick's "Something's Missing," as the two would make a great klepto all-star team! This is a quirky, entertaining read.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 558 reviews