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Bad Marie

by Marcy Dermansky (Goodreads Author)

3.43 of 5 stars 3.43 · rating details · 900 ratings · 237 reviews

Bad Marie is the story of Marie, tall, voluptuous, beautiful, thirty years old, and fresh from six years in prison for being an accessory to murder and armed robbery. The only job Marie can get on the outside is as a nanny for her childhood friend Ellen Kendall, an upwardly mobile Manhattan executive whose mother employed Marie's mother as a housekeeper. After Marie moves...more

Paperback, 240 pages

Published June 22nd 2010 by Harper Perennial (first published June 10th 2010)

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Feb 18, 2011 Myfanwy rated it 5 of 5 stars

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 fuck up. She's also got a big, twisted heart that...more 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 fuck 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. (less)

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Feb 17, 2011 Ethel Rohan rated it 5 of 5 stars

This deceptively simple book was a gripping read and I felt my chest clutch throughout, and whole body sigh at the novel's end. Told in clear, concise prose, Dermansky's characterization of the novel's protagonist, Marie, is masterful. Though a deeply flawed character, I cared a great deal about Marie and found myself hoping for her all the way, even while knowing her situation was impossible.

That sense of the inevitable and the impossible at the end of the novel will stay with me for a long tim...more

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Jun 25, 2010 Linda Lilja rated it 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book about a young woman who lives on the edge of life. It was a quick read and one I will reread. It reminded me of going to a movie in the afternoon, being totally immersed in the experience and feeling startled when it was over and I exited into the bright daylight. I will read her other novel. Hope it is in Sony.

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Mar 04, 2011 Beverly rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, literary, tournament

This is a truly vile book. I can't imagine why anyone would give it a positive rating. It is a slight but ugly story about weakness and evil in which the author, through the protagonist, exploits the fear and loneliness of a kidnapped 2 year old and portrays an abandoned cat so starved and desperate that it loses its teeth trying to bite through metal to get at food. Why present child and animal suffering as central features of a novel along with an unending exposition of fraud, betrayal, theft,...more

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Jul 14, 2010 Karol rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

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 he...more

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Dec 04, 2010 Adele Griffin rated it 5 of 5 stars

pure pleasure even if you're reading with one eye closed and cringing from what she might do next.

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May 17, 2012 eb rated it 5 of 5 stars

It's scandalous that the New York Times didn't give this book the two-review, author-profile treatment--it's thrillingly plotted, very literary, and gleefully impious. I think Jennifer Weiner is right when she says:

"What made these books—or, at least, their authors—so hard for the critics to embrace? Why didn’t they get the attention that translates into sales? Why so much love for Franzen and Shteyngart and hardly any ink for Emma Donoghue and Marcy Dermansky?

I blame the children.

After all, wr...more

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Oct 21, 2011 Lynn rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: ibooks

I am not entirely sure how I feel about this book. Marie is a desperate, delusional thirty year old woman who developmentally seems frozen in a decade past. As a young, reckless, 20-something, she naively makes some bad choices that lead her to prison - which provides for perhaps the first time in her life a predictability and structure that comforts her. But it's also a place where all her decisions are made for her and she can remain helpless and childlike. When she is released, she immediatel...more

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Apr 03, 2011 Katie Parker rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary-fiction, new-releases

I don’t really know what I thought about this book. I read it pretty quickly, finishing almost all of it in two days, but it was a short, straightforward read.

Marie is a 30-year-old woman fresh out of a six-year prison sentence, who is employed by her childhood friend, Ellen, to be a nanny for her toddler-age daughter, Caitlin, who becomes Marie’s favorite person in the world. One night Ellen and her French husband, Benôit Doniel, catch Marie passed out drunk in the bathtub with Caitlin. Ellen i...more

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Mar 05, 2011 Elaine rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

The best thing about this book is Caitlin, the 2 1/2 year old around whom much of the plot centers. I like the way Dermansky faithfully and realistically depicts her speech, her whims, her tantrums and her inherent compelling loveablenes without pretending to show us what goes on inside her head. It's a neat trick, having a character who dominates the narrative to such an extent, but who is essentially a heartbreakingly lovable, maddening, exhausting enigma (as any toddler is). Marie, the ostens...more

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Jan 22, 2011 Nina Sankovitch rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: great-books

Bad Marie by Marcy Dermansky is clever and funny, a riotous ride through the mind of a deranged but strangely appealing anti-heroine, and a jumbled journey from New York to Paris and beyond. I'm not going to give away anything more of the completely original and wacky plot but suffice it to say that Marie is indeed very, very bad.

Despite her badness (she does something no mother could ever forgive), I found myself rooting for Marie. She is perennially unlucky, seemingly fated to make the wrong...more Bad Marie by Marcy Dermansky is clever and funny, a riotous ride through the mind of a deranged but strangely appealing anti-heroine, and a jumbled journey from New York to Paris and beyond. I'm not going to give away anything more of the completely original and wacky plot but suffice it to say that Marie is indeed very, very bad.

Despite her badness (she does something no mother could ever forgive), I found myself rooting for Marie. She is perennially unlucky, seemingly fated to make the wrong choices, and she has been insufficiently loved, doomed by mother and boyfriends to be left behind. She has no safety net of family or money, talent or ambition (I can see, after reading Bad Marie, how ambition can serve as a form of safety blanket -- without it, a person can be utterly lost, disowned, and without compass of any sort). But who can blame Marie for failing to find motivation in a world marching to a drummer she cannot even hear?

Marie finds direction, then love, and then a measure of responsibility, in the toddler she cares for. Caitlin is the daughter of Marie's high school friend, a woman as opposite to Marie as possible. It is Caitlin and Marie's shared love of baths that sets the plot of Bad Marie in motion, and it is their mutual and unquestioning need of each other that forms the heart of this book. Because of how Marie loves Caitlin -- she loves her as every child deserves to be loved -- all the other expectations I might have had of Marie fell away. Everything else Marie does, bad or stupid or dangerous, is in the end far less important than how she loves her little charge, and how she cares for her.

Marie never considers the consequences of anything she does -- which is her downfall, again and again -- and yet by the end of the novel, she understands the gig is up, that her wild search for a place to belong and a person to belong to is over. But does she despair? No, she focuses in on the moment -- a toddler's characteristic and one worth holding onto throughout life -- and takes a bath with the one person she loves, and who loves her back. Maybe Marie is not so bad, after all.(less)

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Nov 17, 2010 Geoffrey Fox rated it 3 of 5 stars

Marie is not really bad, she is just ambitionless and self-indulgent and steals things, including her patroness's clothes, baby and husband, just because she likes them. The husband turns out to be a hopeless, helpless fraud (known for a book which, he confesses, he didn't write) who takes her to Paris on his wife's credit card (he is also moneyless), where he abandons Marie and the baby. Marie has already spent 6 of her 30 years in jail, as an accomplice after running off to Mexico with her Mex...more

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Nov 13, 2010 Caitlin Constantine rated it 4 of 5 stars

I found this book through a discussion of unlikeable characters at The Millions, which is one of those random literary happenstance events that have been occurring quite a bit for me these days. Anyway, the point of the discussion was that oftentimes many readers will gauge their appreciation of a book on how much they liked the main character (or even worse, how much they could relate to the main character). The author held up Bad Marie as an example of a book with a rotten main character that...more I found this book through a discussion of unlikeable characters at The Millions, which is one of those random literary happenstance events that have been occurring quite a bit for me these days. Anyway, the point of the discussion was that oftentimes many readers will gauge their appreciation of a book on how much they liked the main character (or even worse, how much they could relate to the main character). The author held up Bad Marie as an example of a book with a rotten main character that you can't help but cheer for anyway.

I didn't exactly cheer for Marie. Rather, I found myself feeling sorry for her. She may have been thirty and she may have been an ex-convict, but she was also staggeringly naive, in a way that would have been acceptable for a teenager but just seemed sad in a full-grown woman. She made terrible choice after terrible choice, with almost no regard for the way it affected those around her. I won't go so far as to say she's "bad" but she's definitely deficient in all of the ways that count. (I think she maybe recognized that deep-down inside, because she kept repeating that she had no regrets like a mantra, as if she said it enough times it would eventually become true. But how can you have no regrets when every choice you make - and continue to make - limits your future?)

Part of what made the book so compelling for me - as I read this book in one afternoon, while sitting in a sunroom during a rainstorm - was Dermansky's writing. Dermansky said she wanted to write a novel that was like a noirish French film, and I think she succeeded, as the book was gritty and stylish at the same time. But what I liked (liked may be the wrong word for this) was that Dermansky, by choosing to write a character who was so "bad," created someone who was entirely believable. Maybe it's just my own life experiences, but I have seen any number of people who, when faced with a decision, will invariably choose the path that gives them what they want right now, no matter the consequences down the road. Shoot, I see it every time I open my work email and find myself confronted with news releases detailing the drug-fueled abuses, financial scams, passionate assaults and cold-blooded murders committed by my fellow humans. In fact, most of us can point to times in our lives when we have made decisions that were entirely about what we wanted at that moment in time, consequences be damned.

I know that I am sometimes guilty of wanting my main characters to be likable and heroic, and I appreciate it when a writer reminds me that human nature is way more complex than that. But if you have a problem with characters who practically revel in amorality, then you might want to avoid this book.(less)

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Nov 06, 2010 christa rated it 4 of 5 stars

I don't know Marcy Dermansky, but I have to imagine the novelist behind the ridiculously delicious joy-ride Bad Marie spent a lot of time bent over a keyboard cackling as she pulled the wings off her title character.

Fiction just got fun again, friends. This is the kind of book you sprint through, only to realize everyone else is doing it wrong. Writers are taking themselves -- not to mention their characters -- far too seriously.

Lets start where Dermansky starts: With a glass of whiskey and a ba...more I don't know Marcy Dermansky, but I have to imagine the novelist behind the ridiculously delicious joy-ride Bad Marie spent a lot of time bent over a keyboard cackling as she pulled the wings off her title character.

Fiction just got fun again, friends. This is the kind of book you sprint through, only to realize everyone else is doing it wrong. Writers are taking themselves -- not to mention their characters -- far too seriously.

Lets start where Dermansky starts: With a glass of whiskey and a bathtub, which she says in the novel's version of a director's cut is the image that inspired the book.

Marie just got out prison after a six-year stint for abetting a criminal. She didn't actually hate her hard time, which included a monotonous job in laundry, three squares a day, and hours in her bunk re-reading the novel Virginie at Sea, a one-hit wonder by the French author Benoit Doniel. Marie appeals to Ellen, a well-to-do friend from childhood with whom she has a very complicated give-take-take-take relationship, and ends up nannying for her 2-year-old daughter Caitlin. But! Ellen's husband, it turns out, is Benoit Doniel! When the couple comes home and finds Marie drunk, passed out in the bathtub with their daughter -- and Benoit seems appropriately distracted by her big wet breasts -- Marie decides to give him the humpty-hump treatment. She commits to this extra-hard the next day when Ellen takes her out to dinner to tell her she's fired.

Her final days on the job are all very sexy and whirlwind. Baguettes, Ellen's red kimono, and trips to Central Park. Coffee from a bowl, Benoit murmuring in French-lish. Caitlin nonplussed by the image of her father and her nanny bumping faces. Instead of spending a final day together wading in tear-stained nudity, they pack up some organic string cheese and jet off for France together with Caitlin.

The honeymoon period doesn't last a day.

From here, Dermansky takes this hussy without a conscience and beats the shit out of her in a handful of new, surprising, and yes, improbably ways. I'd like nothing better than to sit in a room with four other people who have read this book and flush out why Marie emerges from this novel more likable than when we started, despite the ever-growing resume of bad behavior.

As far as I can tell, this novel has been under-read. Released in soft cover, reviewed by the likes of Elle, but not by major book media. Quite a bit of blog chatter from women who preface their critiques with information about receiving a review copy of the book.

I can't imagine the NYT Book Review could review this, then look at themselves in the mirror in the morning. Pan it, and they are self-righteous dicks. Like it too hard, and they would risk being taken seriously in the future. They would have to address the implausibility, and show concern about how a recently-released convict had such speedy access to a passport. They would suck the ample life out of the novel by thinking about it too hard, which is precisely what no one should do while reading it. Which is fine.

"Bad Marie" makes for a fantastic cult classic. Something passed along between friends and raved about in dark booths of Chinese Restaurants. Our little secret.(less)

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Sep 26, 2010 Ashley rated it 4 of 5 stars

Bad Marie could have been a cliche. The hot nanny; the bored, weak husband; the seemingly cold, ambitious wife. But Dermansky avoids death by predictability.

I read Bad Marie in one day. I can't precisely define what it is that made the story so compelling, but I was completely sucked into the book. I also can't say I particularly cared for Marie, the ex-con landing on her childhood friend's doorstep begging for a job. Friend Ellen takes in Marie, tasks her with caring for young Caitlin. Caitlin...more Bad Marie could have been a cliche. The hot nanny; the bored, weak husband; the seemingly cold, ambitious wife. But Dermansky avoids death by predictability.

I read Bad Marie in one day. I can't precisely define what it is that made the story so compelling, but I was completely sucked into the book. I also can't say I particularly cared for Marie, the ex-con landing on her childhood friend's doorstep begging for a job. Friend Ellen takes in Marie, tasks her with caring for young Caitlin. Caitlin adores Marie, and Marie adores Caitlin.

Whiskey swilling, chocolate loving, and thieving, Marie sets her sights on Ellen's husband and so begins the saga that is Bad Marie. We learn that Marie's always coveted Ellen's life, from the time they were children and even now, after serving six years in prison as an accessory to armed robbery. Although Marie sees what she wants and takes it, this is no "Hand That Rocks The Cradle."

Although Marie's childhood was far from ideal, I never felt sorry for her. I don't know if this ambivalence to Marie was deliberate on Dermansky's part. I found myself frustrated with Marie more than once, shouting to her in my mind, "You can't just take something because you want it. It doesn't work that way." But it does with Marie.

The whole story ends up being a quest for some kind of stability and love for Marie. And ultimately, I think she does begin to realize that she has to return all that she has taken. While deep down, she knows that some things are unforgivable, Marie still imagines that somehow, all those she has wronged will do just that.

At the same time, Marie's illusions about the men she's loved- her "true love" who died in prison, and Ellen's husband (with a twisted, sad backstory all his own)- are shattered in front of her eyes. She finally begins to realize that she creates whatever reality she needs, yet she is consistently disappointed when the true imperfections reveal themselves.

Dermansky's prose is purposeful and eloquent. She repeats a particular exchange between Marie and Caitlin, showing how Marie's adoration for the little girl is perhaps the only pure thing in her life.

So I can't say precisely why I could not put down this book. It certainly wasn't an enchanting, happy ending. It was not sad and melancholy. Perhaps it was the realism of this glimpse into a troubled psyche. Perhaps there was some identification with Marie- thinking the grass is greener in another life, preferring to re-write events in our mind to make them fit our definition of happiness and perfection. At any rate, I found this book oddly and completely compelling.
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Sep 14, 2010 Kristen rated it 4 of 5 stars

I picked up this book during a completely self-indulgent weekend; shopping, eating, and drinking by myself in Portsmouth then dealing with the aftermath on the couch the next day not touching the piles of laundry or dealing with the plumbing situation in the bathroom. Call me the ostrich. Little did I know when I grabbed the small book at River Run bookstore in Portsmouth just how perfect Bad Marie would be for my selfish weekend. When I started reading the book in the bookstore, I knew that I w...more

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Jul 31, 2010 Malcolm Love rated it 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book. Marcy Dermansky is a gifted writer with an original approach to describing moral uncertainty, not unlike Jean-Philippe Toussaint's The Bathroom.
Review from The Current Reader

Marcy Dermansky’s second novel, Bad Marie, is an intimate portrait of a beautiful, but alienated young woman whose life is unmoored from expectation or convention. Upon release from a six-year stint in prison for a crime her boyfriend committed, Marie ends up at age thirty working as a nanny for a former...more

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Jul 15, 2010 Diane rated it 4 of 5 stars

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 an...more 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.
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Jul 09, 2010 Jennifer Rayment rated it 3 of 5 stars

The Good Stuff

Author has a gift for the written word, she's definitely extremely talented
fascinating character study
Very unusual and a little dark
The main character is not a very nice character but you still sort of wish the best for her
darkly funny at times

The Not so Good Stuff

It's not my type of read
Dislike most of the characters in the book with the exception of Marie, and quite frankly not sure why I wanted her to suceed, but I'm guessing that is due to the talent of the writer
Story...more

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Jun 08, 2011 Jennifer rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-club

Marie is actually a very entertaining character. I could have stayed up all night and finished this book in one sitting if I didn't love sleep so much. Problem is, this book has no ending. And for this, I had to take away a couple of stars.

Marie makes a lot of bad decisions. But I did not see her as an evil character. She is incredibly careless, lazy, and has almost no ability to predict the outcome of her actions. She acts as a child, even though she is thirty years old. I cannot dislike her fo...more

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Aug 30, 2012 Keirstan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: american, contemporary, fiction, read-in-2012

Should you choose to read Marcy Dermansky’s polarizing Bad Marie (and I recommend that you do!), get ready for a wild ride. Anti-heroine Marie was the source of much pity, rage, sympathy and other varying emotions as I cruised through this fast-paced and unpredictable novel. But regardless of your final opinion of titular bad girl, Bad Marie teaches a lesson in love that is worth the read.

For a thirty-year-old ex-con, Marie’s life isn’t so bad. She’s managed to secure comfortable employment as t...more Should you choose to read Marcy Dermansky’s polarizing Bad Marie (and I recommend that you do!), get ready for a wild ride. Anti-heroine Marie was the source of much pity, rage, sympathy and other varying emotions as I cruised through this fast-paced and unpredictable novel. But regardless of your final opinion of titular bad girl, Bad Marie teaches a lesson in love that is worth the read.

For a thirty-year-old ex-con, Marie’s life isn’t so bad. She’s managed to secure comfortable employment as the live-in nanny to a childhood friend’s daughter, Caitlin, and spends her days with the two-year-old taking lavender-scented bubble baths and eating copious amounts of macaroni and cheese. Unfortunately, however, Marie and Ellen, Caitlin’s mother, have a complicated relationship, and when Marie gets herself fired, it comes as no surprise that she doesn’t take it in stride. Marie promptly seduces Ellen’s husband and the two take off for Paris with the toddler in tow. Thus begins the licentious adventure of Bad Marie.

Unlike some readers, I never grew to love Marie, but I think I ultimately understood her. Certainly Marie is dealt a tough lot: her mother is unloving and her relationship with Ellen is fraught with envy and resentment. However, instead of overcoming her predicament, she wallows in it, using it as an excuse for bad behavior.

At first, Marie’s relationship with Caitlin isn’t much different. Marie frequently drinks on the job and disregards Ellen’s rules. But then, sensitive to the toddler’s unabashed dependence on her, Marie’s love for the child takes over. Though she puts Caitlin’s interests ahead of her own begrudgingly at first, Marie begins to do it instinctively and then tragically as the novel comes to its close.

In addition to the endearing Marie/Caitlin relationship, I also enjoyed the fish-out-of-water motif that permeates Bad Marie. In nearly every setting save prison, Marie is the outcast. As a child, she was a charity case in the company of Ellen’s family; in college, she was the only student that didn’t understand Ulysses; and as an adult, she’s a felon living with successful New York professionals. Dermansky effectively symbolizes Marie’s black sheep status as the English-speaking American struggles to communicate with both friends and strangers in their native lands. As a result, Marie’s relationships with these characters weaken irrevocably.

Marcy Dermansky’s gem, Bad Marie is a quick, but memorable, read. I look forward to hearing more from this quirky writer in the future.(less)

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Oct 22, 2010 Greg rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, girls-girls-girls

For the second time in about as many weeks I've come across a book with gushing blurbs from well-respected authors that don't seem to fit the book. "...deliciously evil...worthy of Flaubert....a naughty pleasure, a philosophical romp, heady hedonism...so very very bad...." these are just a sampling of unworthy praises on the front and back cover of the book. Never mind the gushing words to be found in the three pages of blurbs inside.

'Bad' Marie is a kind of dopey, hapless woman who does bad th...more For the second time in about as many weeks I've come across a book with gushing blurbs from well-respected authors that don't seem to fit the book. "...deliciously evil...worthy of Flaubert....a naughty pleasure, a philosophical romp, heady hedonism...so very very bad...." these are just a sampling of unworthy praises on the front and back cover of the book. Never mind the gushing words to be found in the three pages of blurbs inside.

'Bad' Marie is a kind of dopey, hapless woman who does bad things because she has the awful luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Almost every 'bad' she does gets explained away by some kind of circumstance that makes her more of a schmuck than even slightly mischievous.

The book isn't awful, nor is it uninteresting; it just isn't the book being advertised by the blurbs. Since the book comes with no little synopsis to help give the reader an idea of what to expect one can only take the word of some respected authors like Antonya Nelson, Mary Robison, Fredrick Barthelme and Margot Livesey to get an idea of what the book is about. There words and the cover picture of a pixie looking girls smoking (Marie is 30. At 30 smoking is no longer cool, nor does it make one 'bad'. A little stupid and addicted but not 'bad', unless one accepts the definition of 'bad' to be like Michael Jackson when he screeched about being 'bad', in which case she still isn't 'bad' because I'm fairly certain one must be able to dance to be 'bad' like that, and I have no idea from the book if Marie can dance. She can drink whisky and show her big boobs to a guy. It is difficult for the reader to forget that Marie has big boobs. I'm surprised there aren't big boobs on the cover of the book, it's like a recurring thing in the book, how big Marie's boobs are).

After reading the over-written prose of Witz this book with it's almost Carver-like-cum-Creative-Writing-Program prose read super fast. Sort of like I'd been warming up with a few of those bats with the donuts on them, and took a swing with a whiffle ball bat. Or like a hot knife through butter or something fast and easy (Insert your own joke here). Which was nice. It was satisfying to just read something with a story and not much of the extra baggage hanging from it. (less)

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May 29, 2011 Heather Colacurcio rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

Marie is an extraordinarily miserable character who is many things all at once. A criminal, a mistress, a kidnapper and a habitual liar are among all of the roles in Marie's reprehensible repertoire. Unfortunately, Marie is overwhelmingly terrible at playing any of these roles; as a result, the entire novel feels like a train destined for a wreck.
That is not to suggest that Dermansky's novel is as "bad" as it's protagonist. Instead, Marie's atrociousness lends itself to the novel's depressing...more

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Jan 30, 2013 Julia Fierro rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: novels, favorites

I read this incredibly entertaining, fun, but also surprisingly moving book in one sitting. Definitely one of the best reads I've had in the last few years.
A more thorough review to come!

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Nov 17, 2011 Karyl rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Bad Marie is bad. Very bad. As soon as she leaves prison, having served time as accessory to a robbery and murder, she looks up her high school friend Ellen and lands a job as the nanny, caring for little Caitlin. But it doesn't take long until Marie decides to sleep with Ellen's husband Benoit, a French author who had penned Marie's favorite novel, the book that sustained her throughout her prison sentence. And then, in a whirlwind, Benoit and Marie and Caitlin jet off together to France.

I rea...more

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Aug 16, 2011 selena rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to selena by: Rebecca of the Book Lady's Blog

Shelves: kindle, 2011

i thought i’d love bad marie, turns out, i’m just like everyone in marie’s life; we like her, but we don’t love her.

marie is recently out of prison for being an accessory to her boyfriend’s bank robbery and escape. sort of. she had met him only a week or so prior, but her passion was strong enough for the word “love” to come into use. she served a few years, getting out on good behaviour (does anyone serve their full jail sentence these days?). her boyfriend of a few weeks had killed himself in...more i thought i’d love bad marie, turns out, i’m just like everyone in marie’s life; we like her, but we don’t love her.

marie is recently out of prison for being an accessory to her boyfriend’s bank robbery and escape. sort of. she had met him only a week or so prior, but her passion was strong enough for the word “love” to come into use. she served a few years, getting out on good behaviour (does anyone serve their full jail sentence these days?). her boyfriend of a few weeks had killed himself in jail. upon release, her old friend ellen, whose parents were like marie’s second family, allows marie to take care of her daughter caitlin, as a nanny of sorts. not many nannies take baths with their charges, or drink and smoke in front of them though. the story takes off when marie is discovered naked in the tub, passed out, by ellen and ellen’s french husband benôit doniel.

to be clear, i’m not sure why ellen ever thought it’d be a good idea to hire marie. it comes out later in the novel that she’s resented her since they were kids, sharing everything with her though she wasn’t family. and maybe the worst part, ellen was nice to her despite marie never treating her like a friend.

(to entrust someone you do not really like but feel indebted to for some reason with your child is much bolder than my strict european upbringing allows.)

during the tub incident, ellen’s husband notices marie and from there on, plotting occurs to sleep with one another. however, marie has ulterior motives. benôit doniel just happens to have written her favourite book, virginie at sea, which she’s read and re-read during her time in jail.

i read this book in a day on my kindle, more accurately in a few hours. i haven’t done that with a book in longer than i can remember, but it wasn’t for my usual reasons. yes, i was interested in the plot and i wanted to see where the plot would lead, but i wasn’t invested in marie. most of the time, a novel holds me because of my own interest in the characters.

upon finishing the book, i thought this was a fault of mine or a shortcoming of the book, but i think this is actually something the author can be proud of – marie’s choices are rash, her life is mostly unstable and shy of her enduring love for caitlin, you cannot pin her down to a sentiment and expect her to stick to it. despite that, the actions she does make you curious to see where they end up. i would compare this to the adage of being unable to turn away from a trainwreck, but that makes it sound negative. it doesn’t always have to be the character that i’m invested in for me to stick around (and to even enjoy it a bit).

the book does take you to quite a few places. marie’s travels take her to paris and to mexico and to the sea, all unexpectedly. there’s, again, that aloof manner in marie, where even though she’s in all of these grand places, it isn’t as meaningful for her. the character it does impact, is caitlin. she takes in paris and mexico and i found myself wondering more and more often what her character was thinking in regards to certain things that marie does. i wonder if caitlin would react to her as i did.

another strange thread, i really couldn’t help but see virginie at the sea and not think of to the lighthouse. i wasn’t sure if this was because of the similaries – virginie versus virginia and the drowning at the end which certainly mimics the ending that virginia herself faced, the huge ties to “family” and just the notion of the sea (which plays such a huge part of virginia’s work). i don’t know if i’m reading too far into it (i do that pretty often) or if others drew comparisons as well.(less)

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Jun 28, 2011 Emily rated it 4 of 5 stars

I put this book as a "to read" because it was on the Tournament of Book list for this year. It got defeated early on but my library only had one copy, so I have just now gotten around to reading it. This was a female fuck up novel if I ever saw one, however it's really well done. It's short--only 200 pages but it's a page turner fo sho. Marie makes bad decisions (hello Bad Marie?!. She has her whole life; sleeping with her best friends boyfriend, dating a bank robber, abetting this bank robber,...more

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Apr 12, 2011 Dianah rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: t-o-b-2011, literature, favorites

Wow - I loved this book! You know you are dealing with a great writer when you care about a character, even though you don't like them. Marie, the nanny, has more to say (both bad and good) about motherhood than most parents. Self-absorbed and narcissistic, Marie takes her young charge on a trans-continental journey without permission. Delicious in her wickedness, you will fall in love with Marie, even though you hate her!

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Jul 09, 2010 Elvia rated it 4 of 5 stars

How could I NOT pick up this book, called BAD MARIE, a picture of a tough looking chick SMOKING a cigarette, on the cover--especially after I read the first line. This book promised a wild, fast ride, and was clearly wrapped in legitimate literature. This is a novel in the truest sense, I think. A little along the lines of Lolita, maybe.

What a well created protagonist! Marie is a woman driven by her Id. I found myself equally as repulsed as I was smitten by her. Marie speaks to the lazy, manipu...more

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Jan 04, 2012 Carrie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, travel, love, dysfunction, relationships, nanny, kids

It is true: when you pick up this novel, make sure you have some time to finish it in the same sitting. It's hard to put down. Reading this book is akin to the saying "like watching a train wreck,"--it's hard to look away. Marie is indeed bad and makes the wrong decision every time she has one to make. It's painful to watch. There is humor, though. Not one character in this story has integrity or is at all likable, with the exception of little Caitlin.[return][return]Two things to be said about...more

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About Marcy Dermansky

Marcy Dermansky is the author of the novels Bad Marie and Twins.

Hailed by The Nervous Breakdown’s Gina Frangello as “genuinely sexy, dark and subversive but also freaking weirdly hilarious,” Bad Marie has been selected as a Barnes and Noble Fall 2010 Discover Great New Writers pick. Time Magazine pronounced Bad Marie “irresistible.”

Marcy’s first novel Twins(2005) was a New York Times Editors Choic...more

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