What do you think?
Rate this book
American Mary
“Told almost entirely through lyrical fragments and beautifully-observed scenes, Alexandra Naughton’s American Mary is the latest incarnation of the Great American Novella, at once unsettling and moving.”
–Michael Kimball, author of Us
“Alexandra Naughton writes from the heart. She plays words like introspective notes, depth sounding their way into a celebratory melancholic mix tape of emotions made for you by your best friend you never knew until now. I have seen her weather storms and be humbled by triumphs, always pushing the ceiling for more. This is her in her glitch goth pastel shadowing, illuminating the sacrificial bargains we all make alone, writing through that heart that she has pulled out of her chest still beating, inviting us to take a closer look at how it all works together.”
–A. Razor, editor of Punk Hostage Press
“In American Mary, Alexandra Naughton’s narrator tells us ‘You can get used to anything if you don’t care about anything.’ This story is one of brave endurance in the face of loneliness and mediocrity. Naughton ‘fail Mary’ weaves searing insights among instances of the depersonalization of being marketed as ‘a capitalist body.’ Naughton’s narrator fights against the comfortable numbness we all feel–she wants to be loved, she wants to matter, she desperately wants to be truly present in each and every moment. Alexandra Naughton’s storytelling is exquisite. She will make you care. All hail, American Mary, full of grace.”
–Carleen Tibbetts, author of to exosk(elle), the last sugar
–Michael Kimball, author of Us
“Alexandra Naughton writes from the heart. She plays words like introspective notes, depth sounding their way into a celebratory melancholic mix tape of emotions made for you by your best friend you never knew until now. I have seen her weather storms and be humbled by triumphs, always pushing the ceiling for more. This is her in her glitch goth pastel shadowing, illuminating the sacrificial bargains we all make alone, writing through that heart that she has pulled out of her chest still beating, inviting us to take a closer look at how it all works together.”
–A. Razor, editor of Punk Hostage Press
“In American Mary, Alexandra Naughton’s narrator tells us ‘You can get used to anything if you don’t care about anything.’ This story is one of brave endurance in the face of loneliness and mediocrity. Naughton ‘fail Mary’ weaves searing insights among instances of the depersonalization of being marketed as ‘a capitalist body.’ Naughton’s narrator fights against the comfortable numbness we all feel–she wants to be loved, she wants to matter, she desperately wants to be truly present in each and every moment. Alexandra Naughton’s storytelling is exquisite. She will make you care. All hail, American Mary, full of grace.”
–Carleen Tibbetts, author of to exosk(elle), the last sugar
236 pages, Paperback
Published March 11, 2016
3 people are currently reading
88 people want to read
About the author
Alexandra Naughton
27 books61 followersAlexandra Naughton is a writer based in Richmond, California. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Be About It Press, established in 2010.
She is the author of six poetry collections including You Could Never Objectify Me More Than I've Already Objectified Myself (Punk Hostage Press, 2015), I Will Always Be In Love (Paper Press, 2015), and I Wish You Never Emailed Me (Ghost City Press, 2016). Her first novel, American Mary, was published by Civil Coping Mechanisms in 2016.
Her writing has been widely published on the web and in print, and she performs regularly in the Bay Area and elsewhere.
Find her on instagram, twitter, facebook, patreon
For bookings and other inqueries, please email bookingnaughton@gmail.com.
Naughton's work straddles the line between fiction and non-fiction, prose and poetry, and explores themes such as self-objectification, existentialism, the frailty of text-based communication, and capitalism.
In a review of her first poetic novel, American Mary, on the literary website Heavy Feather Review, Eric Nguyen wrote: “Naughton is clearly more of a conceptual writer, one who at once challenges and entertains. Her characters are reflections of systems—systems of oppression, as well as systems of support. She can be playful and deeply serious and—by the last pages of American Mary, as the book takes on a monologue quality—very powerful. In the end, Naughton does what [other internet writers] could not: be avant-garde not only in form, but politics as well.”
She is the author of six poetry collections including You Could Never Objectify Me More Than I've Already Objectified Myself (Punk Hostage Press, 2015), I Will Always Be In Love (Paper Press, 2015), and I Wish You Never Emailed Me (Ghost City Press, 2016). Her first novel, American Mary, was published by Civil Coping Mechanisms in 2016.
Her writing has been widely published on the web and in print, and she performs regularly in the Bay Area and elsewhere.
Find her on instagram, twitter, facebook, patreon
For bookings and other inqueries, please email bookingnaughton@gmail.com.
Naughton's work straddles the line between fiction and non-fiction, prose and poetry, and explores themes such as self-objectification, existentialism, the frailty of text-based communication, and capitalism.
In a review of her first poetic novel, American Mary, on the literary website Heavy Feather Review, Eric Nguyen wrote: “Naughton is clearly more of a conceptual writer, one who at once challenges and entertains. Her characters are reflections of systems—systems of oppression, as well as systems of support. She can be playful and deeply serious and—by the last pages of American Mary, as the book takes on a monologue quality—very powerful. In the end, Naughton does what [other internet writers] could not: be avant-garde not only in form, but politics as well.”
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
April 13, 2016
AMERICAN MARY:
BEGINS WITH A DESPAIRING CURSE,
YET ENDS WITH A HOPEFUL PRAYER
I read the first 100 pages in less than one hour, and I read it carefully, as if reciting poetry aloud to a room filled with listeners. First impressions: It reads like a diary AND sounds like a confessional rendered in blank verse.
AMERICAN MARY captures the random thoughts of an American Everywoman as she goes through the routine of a lived moment, hour, or day. It is a search for self and validation in a rear view mirror. It is insightful. I found many of the expressed thoughts, comparisons, and ideas to be profoundly illustrative.
It is like learning to truly know a person, the real person, for the first time, even if the person is one's own daughter. The secrets and hurts fully bared. The young adult's adventures fully shared.
The cultural references (some of which, as a baby-boomer I did not immediately understand) were readily revealed online through YouTube videos and urban slang dictionaries. Going to the computer has filled in the few gaps of understanding the essence of the narrative.
I enjoyed this adventure; laughing out loud at some of the protagonist’s antics, and seething at the outrages suffered at the hands of so-called men, some of whom are no more than large children who shave.
I shed a tear of hope at the end.
AMERICAN MARY: You are never alone as long as we think of you, and we think a lot OF you.
AMERICAN MARY is a very good book. I will read it again and highly recommend it to any Millennial, of either gender, and to any parent seeking real understanding of the tribulations and triumphs of their young adult children.
BEGINS WITH A DESPAIRING CURSE,
YET ENDS WITH A HOPEFUL PRAYER
I read the first 100 pages in less than one hour, and I read it carefully, as if reciting poetry aloud to a room filled with listeners. First impressions: It reads like a diary AND sounds like a confessional rendered in blank verse.
AMERICAN MARY captures the random thoughts of an American Everywoman as she goes through the routine of a lived moment, hour, or day. It is a search for self and validation in a rear view mirror. It is insightful. I found many of the expressed thoughts, comparisons, and ideas to be profoundly illustrative.
It is like learning to truly know a person, the real person, for the first time, even if the person is one's own daughter. The secrets and hurts fully bared. The young adult's adventures fully shared.
The cultural references (some of which, as a baby-boomer I did not immediately understand) were readily revealed online through YouTube videos and urban slang dictionaries. Going to the computer has filled in the few gaps of understanding the essence of the narrative.
I enjoyed this adventure; laughing out loud at some of the protagonist’s antics, and seething at the outrages suffered at the hands of so-called men, some of whom are no more than large children who shave.
I shed a tear of hope at the end.
AMERICAN MARY: You are never alone as long as we think of you, and we think a lot OF you.
AMERICAN MARY is a very good book. I will read it again and highly recommend it to any Millennial, of either gender, and to any parent seeking real understanding of the tribulations and triumphs of their young adult children.
April 7, 2021
No surprise I would enjoy this novel, given my love of experimentation in fiction and particularly in the novel form, as well as my appreciation of Alexandra Naughton's wry writing style. I've heard Ms. Naughton read a few times over the last four or five years here in the San Francisco Bay Area and have always admired her style and performances and was therefore happy to finally procure a copy of this, her first novel, and read it.
Pasolini, in a short story, excerpts a section of a book by Roland Barthes in which Barthes claims that European literature, at least up until the 1960s, is almost wholly descriptive. If this is true, then Naughton's style is superlative, for it reminds me of nothing so much as a kind of Millennial take on Henry James. The style is pointed, detailed, highly visual, if avoiding the verbiage of James's famously long-winded sentences. But American Mary describes apartments, streets, encounters, poetry readings, and phone calls rather than the New York drawing rooms and European hotels and tea rooms of James' novels.
Granted, the reader has to do a lot of work here. The terse nature of the places and character (often only he or she) descriptions doesn't usually signal its connection to the whole of a plot or scenario other than revolving, non-chronologically, around a central female protagonist. Thus there are scenes without plot, places without sequence, and experience without a whole lot of interpretation. Therefore instead of the more common mystery plot of an author showing us clues (and explaining their significance and how they then connect one to the other) like pieces until the puzzle vanishes in favor of the picture it presents, American Mary shows us places, people, and events and leaves it to the reader to experience, connect, and decide if they want to interpret or not; and, if so, how they want to interpret. Such a technique, relying on description over interpretation, rings somewhat truer by leaving the images to seemingly speak for themselves, really allowing the reader to piece them together however they choose. What some might see as disjointed, I see as a great freedom that the novelist offers her audience. Such snatches of reality are a lot like the way we experience life today, I think, thus the relevance of the experiment. Great stuff.
Pasolini, in a short story, excerpts a section of a book by Roland Barthes in which Barthes claims that European literature, at least up until the 1960s, is almost wholly descriptive. If this is true, then Naughton's style is superlative, for it reminds me of nothing so much as a kind of Millennial take on Henry James. The style is pointed, detailed, highly visual, if avoiding the verbiage of James's famously long-winded sentences. But American Mary describes apartments, streets, encounters, poetry readings, and phone calls rather than the New York drawing rooms and European hotels and tea rooms of James' novels.
Granted, the reader has to do a lot of work here. The terse nature of the places and character (often only he or she) descriptions doesn't usually signal its connection to the whole of a plot or scenario other than revolving, non-chronologically, around a central female protagonist. Thus there are scenes without plot, places without sequence, and experience without a whole lot of interpretation. Therefore instead of the more common mystery plot of an author showing us clues (and explaining their significance and how they then connect one to the other) like pieces until the puzzle vanishes in favor of the picture it presents, American Mary shows us places, people, and events and leaves it to the reader to experience, connect, and decide if they want to interpret or not; and, if so, how they want to interpret. Such a technique, relying on description over interpretation, rings somewhat truer by leaving the images to seemingly speak for themselves, really allowing the reader to piece them together however they choose. What some might see as disjointed, I see as a great freedom that the novelist offers her audience. Such snatches of reality are a lot like the way we experience life today, I think, thus the relevance of the experiment. Great stuff.
April 11, 2016
The words in Alexandra Naughton's American Mary turn the manic pixie dream girl trope on its head and leave it for dead, more so than any of her other books thus far. A fragmented chronicle of one young woman's razor-sharp introspection whilst existing in our modern consumer culture.
Her characters have bodies outside of their relationships and flaws, what other writers would call 'quirks,' yet are still temporary, akin to how people live in our limited memories.
It is philosophical and satisfying from the front cover to the final prayer.
Buy it.
Her characters have bodies outside of their relationships and flaws, what other writers would call 'quirks,' yet are still temporary, akin to how people live in our limited memories.
It is philosophical and satisfying from the front cover to the final prayer.
Buy it.
July 27, 2016
This isn't my usual vibe, but I thought is give alt lit a try. I must say that this is one of the most creatively written books I've ever read, and I mean that in the sense of: how did Naughton get all of those little pithy sayings and short narratives to tie together so well? I was really blown away by the reality and raw emotion of the final chapters. I'm well acquainted with the impact of toxic relationships, and Naughton conveys the heaviness of the emotions (fear, hope, etc) flawlessly. Overall, the character was heavier than I was expecting, and I wasn't sure I liked her until the end, when I just wanted to protect her and help her find where she belonged.
November 4, 2016
Words that sting. Tight, strong language. Moving, thought provoking. This differed to me from other works centering on the struggle to exist withing the kind of world that the world is modernly in that things do seem to matter. There's nihilism to it, at least as I saw things, but there isn't the apathy that is common. There is a demand, a fierceness, and that makes the prose that much more urgent. I liked it a great deal.
May 3, 2017
Jordan got American Mary and I was trying to wait until he was done reading it to read it but he hasn't been reading lately so I finally read it all in one night and it was amazing and I loved it. The run-on sentence emphasizes my excitement. It was super relatable like the part where she did the call center job reminded me so much of the horrible job I had doing phone sales for one week, and all of the internal dialogue had me say that sounds like me so much.
May 4, 2016
American Mary is not a typical contemporary navel gazer drowning in it's own ennui. This book is a "delight" and a "surprise" in that the narrator totes her Truth as a sometimes burden, sometimes salvation, always maneuvering the in-between, often laid bare at your feet. Passages made me feel things that I haven't felt in a long time - a very deep down specific aching, longing, confusion, loss that we normalize and tuck away in order to forget. The book carries the weight of a lonely heart and open arms - naked, hopeful, painfully and embarrassingly honest at times - in a way only the brave can, a way only a brave (tough as f***) woman can.
Naughton's language is spot on and conversational without compromising the beauty of the word, the line, the passage. It is lyrical. It is confessional. No plastic flowers, no pandering or cliche musings, Naughton writes with an authenticity that is naked, honest, embarrassing and painful. This is what it feels like to have a heart that beats. One that hurts like hell and refuses to back down. Naughton is obviously a lover::fighter::toughbitch::poet - writing down her naked to articulate our Truth.
If you've ever been a 20-something, you should read this.
If you've ever loved or longed, wanted or lost, you should read this.
If you have a daughter, you should read this.
If you wander, you should read this.
If you are a woman, you should read this.
If you are a man, you should read this.
If you've ever smoked cigarettes on a fire escape, you should read this.
If you've ever spent time in love on a twin bed, you should read this.
If you are a Lover::Fighter - you've found a kindred in American Mary.'
Naughton's language is spot on and conversational without compromising the beauty of the word, the line, the passage. It is lyrical. It is confessional. No plastic flowers, no pandering or cliche musings, Naughton writes with an authenticity that is naked, honest, embarrassing and painful. This is what it feels like to have a heart that beats. One that hurts like hell and refuses to back down. Naughton is obviously a lover::fighter::toughbitch::poet - writing down her naked to articulate our Truth.
If you've ever been a 20-something, you should read this.
If you've ever loved or longed, wanted or lost, you should read this.
If you have a daughter, you should read this.
If you wander, you should read this.
If you are a woman, you should read this.
If you are a man, you should read this.
If you've ever smoked cigarettes on a fire escape, you should read this.
If you've ever spent time in love on a twin bed, you should read this.
If you are a Lover::Fighter - you've found a kindred in American Mary.'
May 20, 2019
What I loved about American Mary was that it made me uncomfortable (in a good way, wait for it). The pace of this verbal scrapbook is dizzying, much like being a socialized-female person in young adulthood....which is why it made me feel uncomfortable. So many moments hit too close to home. This is filled with honesty and ripe, visceral vignettes.
May 25, 2020
An engrossing look at a young woman trying to find her way through life.
August 7, 2019
My mom gave me this book a couple years ago and I finally read it. It is honestly one of the best books I've ever read. instant favorite. Books always proclaim themselves to be page-turners and rarely are for real but this really was one. I felt like I was reading my own philosophical thoughts many times during reading it. I am bad at reviews but yeah, this was an easy read yet it was very intense, thought-provoking. introspective and lovely.
February 12, 2022
A novel told in vignettes, American Mary journals and meanders through a very realistic portrayal of the modern American woman. Full of lame jobs, shitty ex’s, and situations we’d rather just go home and cry about. Naughton’s variation from succinct aphorisms to elongated narratives reads genuine and epistolary, leaving characters and ego on the page for us to examine. A solid read once you start.
April 16, 2018
Read it.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews