The misfortune of Marion Palm A novel

Emily Culliton

Book - 2017

"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"--

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Subjects
Genres
Humorous fiction
Published
New York : Alfred A Knopf 2017.
Language
English
Main Author
Emily Culliton (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
xiii, 281 pages ; 22 cm
ISBN
9781524731908
9780525432623
Contents unavailable.
Review by New York Times Review

BLACK DETROIT: A People's History of Self-Determination, by Herb Boyd. (Amistad/HarperCollins, $16.99.) Boyd weaves the lives of standout African-American figures into this history of the city, tracing its evolution from a French trading post to a symbol of decline. From the country's first black auto dealer to Michigan's first black obstetrician, characters who might have otherwise remained on history's sidelines are the heart of Boyd's history. GOODBYE, VITAMIN, by Rachel Khong. (Picador, $16.) In the wake of a breakup, Ruth - 30, adrift and heartbroken - returns home to care for her father, who is in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. The novel takes the form of Ruth's diary over that year, resulting in a poignant and even darkly comic exploration of adulthood, relationships and memory. THE WRITTEN WORLD: The Power of Stories to Shape People, History, and Civilization, by Martin Puchner. (Random House, $20.) Puchner, an English professor at Harvard, makes the case for literature's all-importance to societies and the shape of humanity's history. His research has taken him to every continent, in the search for sacred and foundational texts, and spans centuries, from Mesopotamia to Cervantes to Harry Potter. SEE WHAT I HAVE DONE, by Sarah Schmidt. (Grove, $16.) Schmidt revisits the unsolved Fall River murders at the center of Lizzie Borden's life: In Massachusetts in 1892, Lizzie's father and stepmother were hacked to death. Schmidt imagines the lead-up to the grisly crime, and Lizzie's possible madness. Our reviewer, Patrick McGrath, called the novel "a lurid and original work of horror," which evokes "the disintegrating character of this sweltering, unhygienic and claustrophobic household of locked doors and repressed emotions." HUNGER: A Memoir of (My) Body, by Roxane Gay. (Harper Perennial, $16.99.) Reflecting on her life through the lens of her body, Gay engages with questions about desire, nourishment and protection. As Carina Chocano wrote here, the memoir reads like Gay's "victorious, if not frictionless, journey back to herself, back into her body, from the splitting off of trauma. Is the responsibility for her body really hers alone?" THE MISFORTUNE OF MARION PALM, by Emily Culliton (Vintage, $15.95.) In this debut novel, a Brooklyn mother has embezzled a modest amount from her children's private school. When it faces an audit, she leaves her family behind and goes on the lam. As she tries to carve out a new place in the world, Marion turns out to be a delightful antiheroine and defies expectation at every turn.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 30, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review

*Starred Review* Culliton's assured and clever novel reads more like that of a seasoned novelist than a debut. Marion Palm is used to a certain lifestyle. Unfortunately, the European vacations, fancy house, and state-of-the-art exercise equipment have been paid for with money embezzled from her daughters' private school. With the school facing an audit, Marion launches her escape plan, consisting of stuffing $40,000 in cash into a knapsack and leaving. However, she doesn't get very far, and instead ends up in a seedier part of Brooklyn that's fairly near to the very family she abandoned. Her husband, Nathan, a clueless poet, is left with taking care of the day-to-day needs of himself and their daughters, teen Ginny and younger Jane, who are struggling, each in her own way, with their mother's disappearance. Culliton tempers her generally unlikable characters with short chapters, often under three pages; omniscient third-person narration; and oddly comic think Miranda July writing. Readers who have wished the narration of The Royal Tenenbaums was an actual book need look no further than The Misfortune of Marion Palm.--Sexton, Kathy Copyright 2017 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Culliton's wonderful and sharp debut novel invites readers into the mind and motivations of an unlikable and remarkable woman. Marion has always lived on the cusp of poverty. She develops a talent for sticky fingers and doctoring numbers, assuring a respite from her despair. When Marion meets handsome, rich poet, Nathan Palm, she achieves a dream of financial security and stability. But reality is cruel and Nathan is not as wealthy as she thought, so Marion relies on her talents to support her family and the lifestyle they are accustomed to. Readers meet Marion on the day she abandons her family, headed on the run with $40,000 in a backpack. After years of embezzling funds from her daughters' private school, Marion has been sent into a panic by a proposed audit. She leaves her husband comically paralyzed, and her daughters, Ginny and Jane, deal with Marion's departure with angst, rage, and attachments to the imaginary. Culliton's prose is effortless and wickedly clever; its ability to condone and condemn in the most succinct way is a testament to the author's storytelling and characterization skills. Moments of empathy are erased by Marion's entitlement, and her vanishing act is curiously irresistible. This debut novel signals the arrival of an exciting talent. Agent: Claudia Ballard, WME Entertainment. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

DEBUT Marion Palm's creative accounting skills are about to catch up with her, as the private school where she works (and embezzles) has finally discovered that $180,000 is missing. Quirky and plain, Marion resents her blue-collar background, surrounded as she is by more wealthy New Yorkers. Why shouldn't she have nice things, too? Married to the clueless Nathan, a sometime poet, Marion has long realized that Nathan's trust fund is not as generous as he thinks and has taken matters into her own hands. Now the school board is onto her. She grabs the cash she has hidden in the basement of their Brooklyn brownstone and runs, leaving Nathan to cope with their two daughters, Ginny and Jane, who are also students at the school. But it's hard to get by on cash alone these days. Marion's misadventures don't take her much farther than Coney Island, where she finds a surprising way out of her predicament in the sly conclusion to this darkly funny story. This debut novel has what many others lack: a wicked sense of humor. VERDICT With her mordant wit, deft plotting, and clever storytelling, Culliton is a young novelist to watch. [See Prepub Alert, 2/27/17.]-Leslie Patterson, Rehoboth, MA © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Denise Nathan Palm is frightened. Marion, he must remind himself, has done this kind of thing before. She comes back. But this time there is a difference: she's involved the kids. She left them at a CVS. Nathan Palm has considered calling a number of people for help. He wants to call his wife. It was strange to have a day without her voice. He has written about her voice before, because he says it was the thing that first attracted him to her. This isn't entirely accurate, but he doesn't remember as well as he should. When he first saw her at the café where she worked, he had a hard time not looking at her breasts. It made him focus on the objects behind her. He pictures the young Marion. He sees a foggy mirror behind the bottles, a chalkboard listing specials, a strand of white Christmas lights. He also sees Marion's breasts. When he looked at the things behind her, he listened to her voice. It sometimes disappointed him when she misused a word or agreed with a wrong opinion, but he eventually understood that Marion was performing for a clientele who did not want a dissenting waitress. Then Marion would be on the phone, ordering two cases of Sancerre to be delivered by Wednesday, and she would become a different person, an older, capable person. And she would negotiate, she could negotiate! She had a head for details. She was never flustered. She had a smooth, deep, melodic voice; she enunciated her words, except when she didn't. And when she didn't, it was for some reason, he knew. Did she not want to be overheard? Did she want to hide her words from him? Nathan Palm misses both his wife's voice and her breasts. Hehas to admit that. He can't call his wife so he calls Denise, an old friend. He hasknown Denise (or rather Denise has known him) since he was ababy. Their mothers liked to drink white wine, smoke cigarettes,and listen to classical records together in the afternoons, and heand Denise would play. She was older by two years, and Nathanremembers that Denise always acted uninterested in him but neverleft his side. More often than not, they didn't talk but played quietgames. The games changed according to age, and when Nathanturned fifteen, the game became sexual. At sixteen, their mothershad a falling-out(Nathan believes there was an infidelity somewhere),but he and Denise kept in touch. Denise is his oldest friend. "I think my wife left me," he says over the phone. "You think? Did she take the kids?" "No. She told them she was visiting her friend Shelley in theHudson Valley." "So?" "So Shelley doesn't know anything about it. And she hasn'tshown up there. And it's weird. It's fucking weird. Marion took thekids out of school and left them in a CVS on Montague." As he tells his story, the story becomes a story and not somethingthat happened. He is aware of choosing the correct detailsand leaving certain ones out, to best illustrate his point in the shortestamount of time. He does this for everyone, and he supposes thathis honed details might be what people like about him. For Denise,however, the abandonment story might not work. Denise considersthe workings of upper-middle-classmarriages hopelessly boring,and while she appreciates details, they have never impressed her. "Denise, I don't know what to do." "What do you think happened?" "I think Marion left me." Denise pauses, then: "What did you do?" "Nothing. Nothing." "That's probably not true." There is a woman in Dumbo that lately I sometimes sleep with. And Imay have told my wife. This is what Nathan thinks. But he asks, "Doyou think Marion is unhappy?" Denise doesn't answer. If she answered, she would say, If I were Marion, I would be unhappy. She's expressed this sentiment before. "Would you come over?" Nathan asks, aware of the tightness inhis chest and that if someone isn't in the house with him soon, hemay lose it. He cannot ask the woman in Dumbo. He can never seeher again. Besides, she'd say no. "I can't. " "Why?" Denise says she will come in an hour. When Nathan Palm hangs up the phone, he does not feel better,as he expected he would. He feels that something needs to bediscussed, and that he has done something wrong. He has madeanother misstep; he is sure of that. Up Front The Days Inn is predictably depressing. When Marion pullsopen the glass door, a young woman exits, and Marion wondersif the young woman is a prostitute. She chastises herself: she isguiltier and more illegal than the prostitute. She books a room for two nights and asks boldly if she can payin cash. The man behind the desk doesn't care, just barks, "Upfront." Marion kneels down to the knapsack and opens the zipperthree inches. It is the first time she has dared to open the knapsack,and she wishes she didn't have to. She fishes out five $20 bills. Ittakes a long time, and the man behind the desk grows impatient.She snaps at the man, says she will be one more minute, okay? Straightening up, she gives the man behind the desk the money,and they glare at each other. He hands her a room key and herchange, briefly explains the complimentary breakfast buffet, andgestures to the elevators. When Marion opens the door of her hotel room and sees thebed, she cries in relief and for her children and for herself, and asshe cries, she tucks herself in. Under the comforter and sheets, shetakes off her shoes, her pants, her shirt, her bra, her underpants.She's naked with her clothes in a bundle beside her. She holds oneof her breasts and goes quickly to sleep. Board Of Trustees Daniel, during a mild panic attack in the third hour of hisfirst working day without Marion, sends an email to everyemployee of the school. The email includes a casual yet thoroughtranscription of Daniel's conversation with Nathan. He explainsthat Nathan used the word missing to describe Marion, but thismust be "metaphorical" or "ironic," because how does a womanfrom Carroll Gardens go missing in this day and age? Daniel asksthis, but then says, Of course, I may be wrong. Perhaps women do gomissing. Perhaps this is my privilege speaking, but we also need to addressthe fact that Marion has been crucial to Deb, just crucial, and that she'sleft behind a gaping hole of functionality and competence, not that Debisn't crucial or competent, but what with her absences and numerous doctorappointments and light sensitivity, it's really Marion who would havebeen helpful in an auditing-typesituation. Which is what we are facingnow. Today. Not that Deb isn't helpful. Also, has anyone noticed that thepetty cash fund is curiously low? After several reply-alls,which briefly crash the school emailserver, Daniel receives a text message from Anna Fisher, a memberof the board of trustees, inviting Daniel in the founders' conferenceroom later that same day. Daniel is briefly thrilled at the prospectof a one-on-onewith such a powerful figure. It is well documentedby the staff that Anna Fisher has been essential to the refinementof the school's branding. In fact, she may have been the first personto use the word branding, and the school is grateful for her infusionof contemporary forward thinking to the board. However, Anna'ssubsequent texts make it clear that Daniel will be facing the wholeboard. Also, she adds in the next bubble, if he is to send any emails in the future, they need to be approved by her first. Even Daniel is able to surmise that this will not be a good meetingfor him, so he is early for the meeting as a gesture of his repentance,and is able to help set up the coffee and bagels with the foodservices staff. A group of pleasant-lookingpeople enter the room, all late butwith excellent excuses. Anna is the latest. After pulling off a knit hatand dragging her fingers through her soft blond hair, she leans forwardand asks Daniel to summarize his email in a few short words.Daniel speaks until Anna leans forward even further to interrupt him. Then you don't know where Marion is? No, not per se. And Marion has been filing the school's quarterly tax returns for thepast five years. Well, it has been a group effort, but one that Marion primarily handled. Led. And there have been accounting discrepancies? I'm not sure if I'm qualified to call them that, but they do seem to besome . . . well, irregularities, maybe. Thank you. Have you had a bagel? Daniel rises and begins to spread cream cheese on half of aneverything bagel, but the board is silent and so he decides he shouldleave. Before he does, he bows to the group, half-smearedbagel inhand, and when the door shuts behind him, the pleasant-lookingpeople laugh. But seriously. Seriously. Where is Marion? Has anyone heard from her? No? What are we going to do without Marion? The lawyers are concerned.The lawyers are always concerned. A risk-aversetype. I suppose we'llhave to find someone to clean up. I wonder where Marion's gone off to. Have we reached out to Nathan? I sent him an email, and texted. He didn't get back to me. We shouldn't pry. We shouldn't? The lawyers seem to feel that it's important we locateMarion. Something about the audit, something about accountability andtransparency and irregular deductions. I don't know. I stopped listening. Well, it seems slightly crass. Let's leave Nathan Palm alone. Of course, there's always the children. A conversation about their mother could be helpful. A gentle conversation.We are, after all, concerned about their well-being.Right? Right. Let's check in with the Palm girls. But can we take a differentapproach from Daniel's? Keep this calm and quiet. And I'm sure we can find someone to step into Marion's shoes untilshe returns. I agree. I mean, she is only part-time. Excerpted from The Misfortune of Marion Palm: A Novel by Emily Culliton All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.