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Bad Marie
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 in with Ellen, Ellen's angelic baby Caitlin, and Ellen's husband, a very attractive French novelist named Benoit Doniel, things get complicated, and almost before she knows what she's doing, Marie has absconded to Paris with both Caitlin and Benoit Doniel. On the run and out of her depth, Marie will travel to distant shores and experience the highs and lows of foreign culture, lawless living, and motherhood as she figures out how to be an adult; how deeply she can love; and what it truly means to be "bad".
212 pages, Paperback
First published June 10, 2010
79 people are currently reading
4918 people want to read
About the author
Marcy Dermansky
9 books29.1k followersMarcy Dermansky is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Hurricane Girl, Very Nice, The Red Car, Bad Marie and Twins. Her new novel Hot Air will be released in the spring of 2025.
Marcy has received fellowships from MacDowell and The Edward Albee Foundation. She lives in Montclair, New Jersey with her daughter.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 443 reviews
April 3, 2023
“Sometimes, Marie got a little drunk at work.”
Oh Marie, you are not a “bad” girl. What you are is very, very naughty! I had a hunch I’d adore Marie after falling for Marcy Dermansky’s latest book, Hurricane Girl. Then when I read that opening sentence, well, there was no question about it! You might not want to admit it, but you can’t at all help rooting for Marie. You see, she just wants to live her life. And life can be very hard.
“Marie had not yet gotten used to the swing of life.”
Marie has just turned thirty and has just been released from jail. How to get on with life from here? She’ll figure things out though, because she’s most definitely a fly by the seat of her pants sort of gal. We should all aim to be at least a fraction as spontaneous as Marie. Do you know what you want? Then do it; grab it! Perhaps we wouldn’t have to smack ourselves over the head so often.
“That was how Marie wanted to live her life. Without regret.”
Marie doesn’t sound to your liking? Do you not relish a good belly laugh?! She sounds like an unsavory character? Yeah, that may be true. I’m not a huge fan of reading about the Pollyannas of the world. Are they for real anyway?! I want to go on an adventure like Marie. I want to eat macaroni and cheese, pour a whiskey (bourbon please), sample escargot, and polish it off with chocolate pudding. Then I’ll take a nice, long soak in the tub. Consequences? I’d like to forget about them for a day or two myself.
“Guilt was almost as bad as regret.”
Oh Marie, you are not a “bad” girl. What you are is very, very naughty! I had a hunch I’d adore Marie after falling for Marcy Dermansky’s latest book, Hurricane Girl. Then when I read that opening sentence, well, there was no question about it! You might not want to admit it, but you can’t at all help rooting for Marie. You see, she just wants to live her life. And life can be very hard.
“Marie had not yet gotten used to the swing of life.”
Marie has just turned thirty and has just been released from jail. How to get on with life from here? She’ll figure things out though, because she’s most definitely a fly by the seat of her pants sort of gal. We should all aim to be at least a fraction as spontaneous as Marie. Do you know what you want? Then do it; grab it! Perhaps we wouldn’t have to smack ourselves over the head so often.
“That was how Marie wanted to live her life. Without regret.”
Marie doesn’t sound to your liking? Do you not relish a good belly laugh?! She sounds like an unsavory character? Yeah, that may be true. I’m not a huge fan of reading about the Pollyannas of the world. Are they for real anyway?! I want to go on an adventure like Marie. I want to eat macaroni and cheese, pour a whiskey (bourbon please), sample escargot, and polish it off with chocolate pudding. Then I’ll take a nice, long soak in the tub. Consequences? I’d like to forget about them for a day or two myself.
“Guilt was almost as bad as regret.”
June 23, 2019
Marie is so bad. Why? Well, she spent time in prison for helping her bank robbing boyfriend, for starters. She drinks on the job - a job which involves caring for a two year old. She also steals men from their wives and flies off to Paris with them.
Yeah, she might be bad, but I loved reading about Marie, because she's pretty much the most straightforward character you'll come across. Completely artless and with very little forethought, she goes from one meal to the next, with no care for the consequences. Consequences, what are those? In this way she's also the freest character you'll come across. You can't help but like Marie, even if she has better boobs than you do, and you definitely can't predict her.
Dermansky's heroine has a lot in common with the two year old shekidnaps looks after. She wants what she wants, innocent of the rules of the world. She doesn't mean to be bad, she just is. She's been let down by life time and time again. Dreams don't live up to the reality - not the dream of love, of art, or even Paris. Nothing is quite as good as she hoped - except maybe the perfection of a bath with two year old Caitlin.
This is a joyride with a bodacious, blindfolded, bad broad at the wheel, a broad with the inhibitions of a toddler. What delicious, readable fun!
Yeah, she might be bad, but I loved reading about Marie, because she's pretty much the most straightforward character you'll come across. Completely artless and with very little forethought, she goes from one meal to the next, with no care for the consequences. Consequences, what are those? In this way she's also the freest character you'll come across. You can't help but like Marie, even if she has better boobs than you do, and you definitely can't predict her.
Dermansky's heroine has a lot in common with the two year old she
This is a joyride with a bodacious, blindfolded, bad broad at the wheel, a broad with the inhibitions of a toddler. What delicious, readable fun!
September 17, 2022
Marie did a bad thing. Freshly released from a six-year prison stint, there is no one waiting to pick her up and take care of her. No matter, she wasn't interested in returning home anyway. She manages to finagle a job from her childhood girlfriend and is put in charge of the friend's toddler. Marie likes the little girl. She also likes her friend's husband. Marie continues to do bad things.
I have never met anyone like Marie, and may that ever hold true. She is the stereotypical irregular weave. Selfish in the same way as a child is, no filter between her thoughts and her tongue. Not sure if she is simple-minded or just emotionally immature. She doesn't seem to be inherently evil, but her thought process is not the same as yours or mine. Her behavior is not acceptable.
Loved every minute of this craziness. Nail down your belongings, ensconce your loved ones in a safe place, and spend some time with Marie. No one else writes stories like this. Brava, Marcy Dermansky!
I have never met anyone like Marie, and may that ever hold true. She is the stereotypical irregular weave. Selfish in the same way as a child is, no filter between her thoughts and her tongue. Not sure if she is simple-minded or just emotionally immature. She doesn't seem to be inherently evil, but her thought process is not the same as yours or mine. Her behavior is not acceptable.
Loved every minute of this craziness. Nail down your belongings, ensconce your loved ones in a safe place, and spend some time with Marie. No one else writes stories like this. Brava, Marcy Dermansky!
December 22, 2022
I really don’t know who that girl on the cover is.
My Marie doesn’t even smoke. People don’t need to smoke to be bad. Lots of people haven’t touched a cigarette in their lives and they seem pretty dreadful to me. And it’s not even like my Marie is a bad person. She’s just… spontaneous. She goes with the flow. I like people that go with the flow. I’m team Marie. We don’t always need a plan. Plans get ruined all the time. Life’s too short for too many plans, anyway. Bring on the surprises. Give me people like Marie at any given day. Rules are here to be broken. Limits exist only in people’s minds. Oh yeah, threesome tonight, Marie. Allison (my hurricane girl) is on her way. Wheeeeeeeee!!!
Okay, now that I unsuccessfully tried to be funny, let me change to a serious, respectful and academic mode and tell you (for the millionth time) how much I admire and love Marcy Dermasnky’s smart writing and fun approach to storytelling. So yes, I admire and love everything she does very, very much. First of all, and as far as I’m aware there’s no one else telling stories in the way that she does - FIVE STARS FOR ORIGINALITY.
Second of all, there’s nothing short of amazing in the way that Marcy Dermansky manages to write these stories without ever falling into the traps of melodrama and over-sentimentality - FIVE STARS FOR BRAVERY.
Another thing that has to be mentioned when talking about everything that makes Marcy Dermansky such an outstanding writer is her sense of humour, and the way she manages to make me laugh exactly with and about the things/topics that most writers out there use only with the intent of pulling at the readers heartstrings.
So yes, I have a very dark sense of humour, hate when everything is “too much on the face” and have no words to express how much I appreciate when an author assumes that readers can be as intelligent as they are - FIVE STARS FOR HUMILITY.
It’s pretty obvious to me, that this story was written by someone who’s been paying close attention to people, and the deceptively simple writing works beautifully in terms of setting, character development and, most important of all, dialogue.
Can’t wait to read Dermansky’s The Red Car and Very Nice and, above all, can’t wait to see what she’ll come up to after the stunning Hurricane Girl.
Highlight of 2022.
Wheeeeeeeee!!!
My Marie doesn’t even smoke. People don’t need to smoke to be bad. Lots of people haven’t touched a cigarette in their lives and they seem pretty dreadful to me. And it’s not even like my Marie is a bad person. She’s just… spontaneous. She goes with the flow. I like people that go with the flow. I’m team Marie. We don’t always need a plan. Plans get ruined all the time. Life’s too short for too many plans, anyway. Bring on the surprises. Give me people like Marie at any given day. Rules are here to be broken. Limits exist only in people’s minds. Oh yeah, threesome tonight, Marie. Allison (my hurricane girl) is on her way. Wheeeeeeeee!!!
Okay, now that I unsuccessfully tried to be funny, let me change to a serious, respectful and academic mode and tell you (for the millionth time) how much I admire and love Marcy Dermasnky’s smart writing and fun approach to storytelling. So yes, I admire and love everything she does very, very much. First of all, and as far as I’m aware there’s no one else telling stories in the way that she does - FIVE STARS FOR ORIGINALITY.
Second of all, there’s nothing short of amazing in the way that Marcy Dermansky manages to write these stories without ever falling into the traps of melodrama and over-sentimentality - FIVE STARS FOR BRAVERY.
Another thing that has to be mentioned when talking about everything that makes Marcy Dermansky such an outstanding writer is her sense of humour, and the way she manages to make me laugh exactly with and about the things/topics that most writers out there use only with the intent of pulling at the readers heartstrings.
So yes, I have a very dark sense of humour, hate when everything is “too much on the face” and have no words to express how much I appreciate when an author assumes that readers can be as intelligent as they are - FIVE STARS FOR HUMILITY.
It’s pretty obvious to me, that this story was written by someone who’s been paying close attention to people, and the deceptively simple writing works beautifully in terms of setting, character development and, most important of all, dialogue.
Can’t wait to read Dermansky’s The Red Car and Very Nice and, above all, can’t wait to see what she’ll come up to after the stunning Hurricane Girl.
Highlight of 2022.
Wheeeeeeeee!!!
December 10, 2022
Is there anything sweeter for readers than discovering an author we have chemistry with and a back catalog to explore? My jag through the work of Marcy Dermansky continues with her second novel Bad Marie. Published in 2010, the descriptions had me anticipating an intricately plotted noir loaded with sex and duplicity. The novel isn't that structured, but I rolled delightfully along with it for what it was, an intimate, off-kilter and wildly inappropriate account of a woman whose decisions are awesomely bad, but who doesn't believe herself to be.
The novel is the third-person omniscient account of Marie, a tall, voluptuous and dark-haired thirty-year-old who's been released from prison after a six year term as an accessory to murder and bank robbery. Marie ended up on the doorstep of her childhood friend Ellen Kendall in Manhattan, who offers her room and board to take care of her two-and-a-half year-old daughter Caitlin. Marie changes diapers, makes lunches and takes Caitlin on walks while Ellen is at the office. Her French husband, an author named Benoît Doniel, leaves the house to work on a follow-up to the novel Marie fell in love with in prison.
Without spoiling anything, Marie is impulsive. If there's a cookie jar on the counter, this woman is going to get into it and probably eat all the cookies in one sitting, leaving crumbs on the sofa and probably her shirt. Her best friend is a toddler with similar impulse control problems but in a good fit for Marie, has the memory of a doodlebug. Marie's mother stood her up on the day her daughter was released from prison and Ellen is left to find out the hard way what happens when you give Marie access to your husband and daughter. The writing is my kind of funny. Darkly funny.
Marie was pleasantly drunk the night Ellen and her French husband came home from the theater and found Marie passed out in the bathtub. She had put Caitlin to sleep and was watching bad television, a movie about a sexy teenaged babysitter. First the babysitter drugged the mother, then she seduced the father, and at the moment when Caitlin started to scream, she was chasing the daughter through the house, wielding a kitchen knife.
"Marie. Marie, Marie, Marie!"
Marie ran as fast as she could to Caitlin's room, crashing into an end table on the way, breaking a ceramic vase, afraid of everything: an intruder with a gun, a poisonous spider beneath the sheets, a monster in the closet. A raging fever. Knife-wielding babysitters.
But nothing was wrong.
Caitlin wanted to take a bath.
"You aren't sick?" Marie said, out of breath, tremling.
"You forgot my bath." Caitlin was standing up in her crib, holding the bars as if she was ready to revolt. "I feel sticky. I want my bath."
Caitlin was red from screaming. Marie was shaking with anger. Relief. She lifted Caitlin from the crib and discovered that the little girl, was, in fact, sticky. Not only sticky, but visibly dirty. Her face was smeared with chocolate ice cream; they had eaten soft serve earlier that day. Marie put her finger on Caitlin's round, hot cheek.
"We forgot your bath?"
Though Marie was paid to take care of Caitlin, she often felt that Caitlin was looking after her. Marie always felt guilty for the things she did wrong. Every day there was some small new mistake to make, but so far, there had been no consequences. Marie smiled, feeling Caitlin's sturdy legs lock around her.
Like Dermansky's debut novel Twins, Bad Marie reads like a highwire act. Her stories aren't intricately plotted with a lot of intention or obstacle. They operate without a net, feeling big-top and thrilling. Her characters leap off the page. (Marie reminded me of Nicki Minaj, without makeup.) Rather than the rich or privileged, she writes about women on the margins who have big dreams but are scraping by. A former film critic, Dermansky usually has something bananas playing on TV; the excerpt above describes the tawdry Drew Barrymore movie from 1992, Poison Ivy, which is exactly what Marie would find channel surfing and want to watch.
The novel is the third-person omniscient account of Marie, a tall, voluptuous and dark-haired thirty-year-old who's been released from prison after a six year term as an accessory to murder and bank robbery. Marie ended up on the doorstep of her childhood friend Ellen Kendall in Manhattan, who offers her room and board to take care of her two-and-a-half year-old daughter Caitlin. Marie changes diapers, makes lunches and takes Caitlin on walks while Ellen is at the office. Her French husband, an author named Benoît Doniel, leaves the house to work on a follow-up to the novel Marie fell in love with in prison.
Without spoiling anything, Marie is impulsive. If there's a cookie jar on the counter, this woman is going to get into it and probably eat all the cookies in one sitting, leaving crumbs on the sofa and probably her shirt. Her best friend is a toddler with similar impulse control problems but in a good fit for Marie, has the memory of a doodlebug. Marie's mother stood her up on the day her daughter was released from prison and Ellen is left to find out the hard way what happens when you give Marie access to your husband and daughter. The writing is my kind of funny. Darkly funny.
Marie was pleasantly drunk the night Ellen and her French husband came home from the theater and found Marie passed out in the bathtub. She had put Caitlin to sleep and was watching bad television, a movie about a sexy teenaged babysitter. First the babysitter drugged the mother, then she seduced the father, and at the moment when Caitlin started to scream, she was chasing the daughter through the house, wielding a kitchen knife.
"Marie. Marie, Marie, Marie!"
Marie ran as fast as she could to Caitlin's room, crashing into an end table on the way, breaking a ceramic vase, afraid of everything: an intruder with a gun, a poisonous spider beneath the sheets, a monster in the closet. A raging fever. Knife-wielding babysitters.
But nothing was wrong.
Caitlin wanted to take a bath.
"You aren't sick?" Marie said, out of breath, tremling.
"You forgot my bath." Caitlin was standing up in her crib, holding the bars as if she was ready to revolt. "I feel sticky. I want my bath."
Caitlin was red from screaming. Marie was shaking with anger. Relief. She lifted Caitlin from the crib and discovered that the little girl, was, in fact, sticky. Not only sticky, but visibly dirty. Her face was smeared with chocolate ice cream; they had eaten soft serve earlier that day. Marie put her finger on Caitlin's round, hot cheek.
"We forgot your bath?"
Though Marie was paid to take care of Caitlin, she often felt that Caitlin was looking after her. Marie always felt guilty for the things she did wrong. Every day there was some small new mistake to make, but so far, there had been no consequences. Marie smiled, feeling Caitlin's sturdy legs lock around her.
Like Dermansky's debut novel Twins, Bad Marie reads like a highwire act. Her stories aren't intricately plotted with a lot of intention or obstacle. They operate without a net, feeling big-top and thrilling. Her characters leap off the page. (Marie reminded me of Nicki Minaj, without makeup.) Rather than the rich or privileged, she writes about women on the margins who have big dreams but are scraping by. A former film critic, Dermansky usually has something bananas playing on TV; the excerpt above describes the tawdry Drew Barrymore movie from 1992, Poison Ivy, which is exactly what Marie would find channel surfing and want to watch.
December 28, 2022
Marie, Marie, Marie....*Sigh*
As the famous philosopher once said:
"This is everybody's fault but mine." ~ Homer Simpson
Yes, Marie has made some bad choices. Having just spent the last 6 years in prison for bank robbery and attempted murder she is released to find that no one, not even her mother, has come to get her. She shows up on the doorstep of her childhood best friend with only the clothes on her back. Her friend, a successful professional, takes pity on her and allows her to be the nanny to her 2 1/2 year old daughter, Caitlin.
And guess what? Marie loves it. She loves Caitlin. They are the best of friends. Until an incident in a bathtub gets Marie fired leaving her with no options than to run away to France with her best friends husband and daughter. What could possibly go wrong?!?!
If you've read Marcy Dermansky before then you know she embraces quirky characters quite well. Marie is an unusual character that at times I admired and at other times I felt sorry for. I appreciated that she had no regrets, is completely unashamed, and always told the truth as she saw it no matter how uncomfortable it made you feel or if her take on it was completely skewed by her own perception. You see, it's not that Marie makes bad choices, it's that bad situations seem to seek her out completely out of her control. She has a tendency to reminisce with rose-tinted glasses on. She is fonder of the memories she's created in her mind rather than what the actual reality of these situations were which has her constantly trying to seek out that happiness she once thinks she had yet stumbling time and time again when the shock of reality hits. That's probably not the best description but it's all I can come up with at the moment. Words are hard.
While I did enjoy this I do wish the ending had more closure.
An oddity of a novel. Marie isn't necessarily someone I would want as a friend but she makes for a compelling story and boy did I chuckle a time or two. I'm glad I read this to close out my 2022 reading year and I look forward to more peculiar stories by Dermansky in the future. 3.5 stars!
Thanks to Overdrive for the loan!
As the famous philosopher once said:
"This is everybody's fault but mine." ~ Homer Simpson
Yes, Marie has made some bad choices. Having just spent the last 6 years in prison for bank robbery and attempted murder she is released to find that no one, not even her mother, has come to get her. She shows up on the doorstep of her childhood best friend with only the clothes on her back. Her friend, a successful professional, takes pity on her and allows her to be the nanny to her 2 1/2 year old daughter, Caitlin.
And guess what? Marie loves it. She loves Caitlin. They are the best of friends. Until an incident in a bathtub gets Marie fired leaving her with no options than to run away to France with her best friends husband and daughter. What could possibly go wrong?!?!
If you've read Marcy Dermansky before then you know she embraces quirky characters quite well. Marie is an unusual character that at times I admired and at other times I felt sorry for. I appreciated that she had no regrets, is completely unashamed, and always told the truth as she saw it no matter how uncomfortable it made you feel or if her take on it was completely skewed by her own perception. You see, it's not that Marie makes bad choices, it's that bad situations seem to seek her out completely out of her control. She has a tendency to reminisce with rose-tinted glasses on. She is fonder of the memories she's created in her mind rather than what the actual reality of these situations were which has her constantly trying to seek out that happiness she once thinks she had yet stumbling time and time again when the shock of reality hits. That's probably not the best description but it's all I can come up with at the moment. Words are hard.
While I did enjoy this I do wish the ending had more closure.
An oddity of a novel. Marie isn't necessarily someone I would want as a friend but she makes for a compelling story and boy did I chuckle a time or two. I'm glad I read this to close out my 2022 reading year and I look forward to more peculiar stories by Dermansky in the future. 3.5 stars!
Thanks to Overdrive for the loan!
September 13, 2022
Forty-one percent through this book (sorry, no page numbers on the Kindle edition), there is a plot twist that made me gasp out loud and turn off my device so I could savor, salivate, and quietly roar: Marcy Dermansky is gold! I’ve found a treasure trove of a writer!
I discovered Dermansky through her newest book, Hurricane Girl , and I suspected I was in for a long, delicious ride reading her previous books.
She could get away with being “quirky” (don’t get me started on how much I despise that word as a character descriptor), but she has things to say.
But instead of spelling them out and ruining your reading fun, I’ll tell you another story:
Freshman year of college in 1969, kids from another school invaded our campus. I was a pretty private person. It never would have occurred to me to invite strangers into my dorm room, but I wasn’t given the choice. In the middle of the night my next-door neighbor deposited somebody, saying so-and-so needed to sleep on my floor—bam! I was barely awake and didn’t protest. But grogginess gave way to stupefied horror as this first person, a girl, was joined by a boy who lay down beside her, then demanded my bedspread so they’d have cover as they proceeded to fuck (another word I’m not fond of, but nothing else will do here). Yes, they went at it twelve inches from my head.
Do you want to know about people who act this way? I do. Not within breathing distance, but in a book, yeah, bring it on. Show me, let me feel the motivation and rationales that allow people to behave in ways I never could.
I can’t get enough of this stuff. Narcissists, psychopaths, amoral real people. When they’re true, whole characters, there is nothing better. I get a good laugh and, finding them in myself because they are true and therefore easy to identify with, I expand.
When I decided to write my own last published novel, The Last Will & Testament of Zelda McFigg , the need to embody and celebrate the worst flaws I’d ever suppressed or could imagine suppressing took over. And it was glorious. Liberating.
All this stuff is hidden inside all of us. I certainly have felt like Dermansky’s protagonist, Marie, completely unmoored, making life up as I free fell. To let it rip, let it be hilarious—well, I can’t imagine a more fun writing and reading experience.
In Steve Toltz (most recently Here Goes Nothing ) and now with Marcy Dermansky, I have found other members of my karmic writers’ pack. What a relief. What a joy.
I discovered Dermansky through her newest book, Hurricane Girl , and I suspected I was in for a long, delicious ride reading her previous books.
She could get away with being “quirky” (don’t get me started on how much I despise that word as a character descriptor), but she has things to say.
But instead of spelling them out and ruining your reading fun, I’ll tell you another story:
Freshman year of college in 1969, kids from another school invaded our campus. I was a pretty private person. It never would have occurred to me to invite strangers into my dorm room, but I wasn’t given the choice. In the middle of the night my next-door neighbor deposited somebody, saying so-and-so needed to sleep on my floor—bam! I was barely awake and didn’t protest. But grogginess gave way to stupefied horror as this first person, a girl, was joined by a boy who lay down beside her, then demanded my bedspread so they’d have cover as they proceeded to fuck (another word I’m not fond of, but nothing else will do here). Yes, they went at it twelve inches from my head.
Do you want to know about people who act this way? I do. Not within breathing distance, but in a book, yeah, bring it on. Show me, let me feel the motivation and rationales that allow people to behave in ways I never could.
I can’t get enough of this stuff. Narcissists, psychopaths, amoral real people. When they’re true, whole characters, there is nothing better. I get a good laugh and, finding them in myself because they are true and therefore easy to identify with, I expand.
When I decided to write my own last published novel, The Last Will & Testament of Zelda McFigg , the need to embody and celebrate the worst flaws I’d ever suppressed or could imagine suppressing took over. And it was glorious. Liberating.
All this stuff is hidden inside all of us. I certainly have felt like Dermansky’s protagonist, Marie, completely unmoored, making life up as I free fell. To let it rip, let it be hilarious—well, I can’t imagine a more fun writing and reading experience.
In Steve Toltz (most recently Here Goes Nothing ) and now with Marcy Dermansky, I have found other members of my karmic writers’ pack. What a relief. What a joy.
October 23, 2010
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.
'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.
June 25, 2025
Unique and enjoyable and surprising. I never knew what was going to happen. The characters act and react in ways so extreme that the novel somehow becomes an insightful critique of reality, like good satire, although in this case the protagonist is far too moving and sympathetic for this to be considered satire per se. Marie is a character with absolutely zero forethought. She acts without any sense of possible consequences. She has no ambition other than to feel safe and loved. She's an incredible mix of guileless and audacious in the choices she makes. I loved spending time with her as she encounters the world and tries her best to survive in it.
November 6, 2010
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.
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.
August 6, 2020
If this were a 300 page novel I think after 100 pages I would have bailed on it. It was 212 pages. I was waiting/longing for it to end.
I understand that with some novels one has to suspend belief. In fact in some stories it would be foolish not to, or to not even start on a story if it is billed as fantastical and then for you to say “well this sort of stuff just doesn’t happen” or “this Is not how people behave”.
Well I don’t recall this novel being billed as fantastical and so therefore I am panning it. One has to accept one preposterous notion after another after another after another where it just becomes a ludicrous/ridiculous mess. And the writing isn’t all that great either.
Pfooey! 😕
I read the paperback so it must have gotten good enough reviews for it to transition from hardcover to paperback. Actually now that I look there doesn't appear to have been a hardcover edition.
Damn, Margot Livesey had a positive blurb on the back for this book. I liked one of her works (Eva Moves the Furniture). ☹
Reviews:
https://www.elle.com/culture/books/re...
from a blog-site: https://medium.com/@melissafirman/bes...
https://themillions.com/2011/02/the-t...
I understand that with some novels one has to suspend belief. In fact in some stories it would be foolish not to, or to not even start on a story if it is billed as fantastical and then for you to say “well this sort of stuff just doesn’t happen” or “this Is not how people behave”.
Well I don’t recall this novel being billed as fantastical and so therefore I am panning it. One has to accept one preposterous notion after another after another after another where it just becomes a ludicrous/ridiculous mess. And the writing isn’t all that great either.
Pfooey! 😕
I read the paperback so it must have gotten good enough reviews for it to transition from hardcover to paperback. Actually now that I look there doesn't appear to have been a hardcover edition.
Damn, Margot Livesey had a positive blurb on the back for this book. I liked one of her works (Eva Moves the Furniture). ☹
Reviews:
https://www.elle.com/culture/books/re...
from a blog-site: https://medium.com/@melissafirman/bes...
https://themillions.com/2011/02/the-t...
January 2, 2018
I LOVED this book. Marie is, indeed, bad, as the inciting incident of the novel is her stealing her childhood friend's husband (and two-year-old daughter!) and escaping to France. But the narrative is so good that I wanted Marie to make it, and it was so fun to read about a female antihero who is simply living from moment to moment. This is all over the place and it is delightful. Dermansky says at the end that she wanted to write a book that read like a French noir film, and she definitely succeeded.
July 20, 2020
Marie is very bad, but she does have integrity (although I wouldn't let her babysit my child). This is a blast of a book, if you can handle badness!
July 20, 2020
5 stars for perfectly executing a perfectly delightful book. Dermansky's writing is so effortlessly charming, I was enchanted by every character, from the mangy cat to the movie star. Marie is an attractive 30 year old woman who lives from moment to moment and has the conscience of a toddler. She is like a cartoon character who calmly notices that she's walked herself off a cliff and keeps walking as she falls through the air, landing on her feet and continuing to walk, thinking "Well, that was interesting". Marie's traveling companion on her adventures around the world is Caitlin, the 2 1/2 year old girl she babysits. Caitlin makes most of the decisions for the pair - not because Marie is a pushover, but because Marie feels that Caitlin is usually right, so why not? What could go wrong? This book is amusing, but not a comedy because Marie is not without heart, but just when you start to feel some sympathy for her, she does her Bad Marie thing again. And again.
March 14, 2025
Unexpectedly made me cry more than once ??? Good but wtf was that lol
June 29, 2025
Let women be dirtbags.
I love reading books in which the protagonist and I are in the same age cohort. In this case, Marie is 30. She definitely does not fit the thirty, and flirty, and fun archetype. She's thirty, and newly released from prison, and about to commit several more crimes and moral wrongs, which unfortunately does not rhyme and isn't as cutesy as the aforementioned jingle.
Marcy Dermansky skillfully created a character that feels realistic in a novel that is so dreamily absurdist; Marie is both the the delicate feeling of falling and the violent lurch forward when you suddenly wake up. Sometimes I wanted Marie to go straight to jail and sometimes I was rooting for her chaotic shenanigans. Throughout my reading and even months later, my feelings about Marie are ever-evolving and I think that's the ideal outcome of a character study. Maybe we haven't all taken a drunken bubble bath at our employer's home or kidnapped a child and taken them out of the country, but we are all a little bit Marie in one way or another.
I love reading books in which the protagonist and I are in the same age cohort. In this case, Marie is 30. She definitely does not fit the thirty, and flirty, and fun archetype. She's thirty, and newly released from prison, and about to commit several more crimes and moral wrongs, which unfortunately does not rhyme and isn't as cutesy as the aforementioned jingle.
Marcy Dermansky skillfully created a character that feels realistic in a novel that is so dreamily absurdist; Marie is both the the delicate feeling of falling and the violent lurch forward when you suddenly wake up. Sometimes I wanted Marie to go straight to jail and sometimes I was rooting for her chaotic shenanigans. Throughout my reading and even months later, my feelings about Marie are ever-evolving and I think that's the ideal outcome of a character study. Maybe we haven't all taken a drunken bubble bath at our employer's home or kidnapped a child and taken them out of the country, but we are all a little bit Marie in one way or another.
June 11, 2012
This reminded me of a Highsmith novel, only the anti-hero's adventures aren't played for suspense in exactly the same way. There aren't really many near misses with the authorities, though there are a few twists and turns. But there's the same insane, off-kilter moral equivocating (stealing an old frienemy's husband and child are justifiable, but not stealing a stranger's stroller), the same delusional self-confidence. It takes real talent to walk that tightrope that stretches the span between "I can't believe this person!" and "I hope she makes it!" and Dermansky pulls it off in style.
I loved the repetition of certain phrases -- "the French actress" -- the contempt, the bitterness disguised as something else. Marie was fascinating from page one to the end of the book, and the narrative style was a big reason why.
This is a great book to read on a long flight or a short vacation. It's fun without sacrificing style, and it will keep you turning the pages. I'll admit to being sort of a fanboy for the unlikeable character in fiction, but it's mystifying to me why this book has a 3.44 star rating. It's about a sexy bad girl with big breasts who escapes to France with a louche writer and his daughter. Who doesn't want to read that?
I loved the repetition of certain phrases -- "the French actress" -- the contempt, the bitterness disguised as something else. Marie was fascinating from page one to the end of the book, and the narrative style was a big reason why.
This is a great book to read on a long flight or a short vacation. It's fun without sacrificing style, and it will keep you turning the pages. I'll admit to being sort of a fanboy for the unlikeable character in fiction, but it's mystifying to me why this book has a 3.44 star rating. It's about a sexy bad girl with big breasts who escapes to France with a louche writer and his daughter. Who doesn't want to read that?
April 29, 2010
DAMN. Literature with a capital L, and you know, it's idiotic of me, but I always forget that Literature with a capital L is frequently just as entertaining and readable as Literature with a capital Crap. Why do I forget that? How do I not remember that, even though I read Chelsea Cain and Christopher Moore and John Burdett, my FAVORITE books are by Cormac McCarthy and Updike and Walker Percy and Liz Jensen?
I don't know. Blame Marie. Everyone else does.
Marie is too much. She is beautiful and greedy, a thirty-year-old child in a tall, titsy body, moving through life at the whim of adults who treat her like some kind of badge. When we meet her she's working as a nanny for her childhood friend Ellen, a super-successful Manhattanite with a brownstone, a toddler, and a French novelist husband.
Marie gets everything but the brownstone, of course.
I don't want to give too much away, but Marie, despite being a homewrecker and a kidnapper, a thief and an adulteress, is not the worst character in this book - and the badness of the others is breathtaking. Short, picturesque, and mesmerizing. Bad Marie: good novel.
I don't know. Blame Marie. Everyone else does.
Marie is too much. She is beautiful and greedy, a thirty-year-old child in a tall, titsy body, moving through life at the whim of adults who treat her like some kind of badge. When we meet her she's working as a nanny for her childhood friend Ellen, a super-successful Manhattanite with a brownstone, a toddler, and a French novelist husband.
Marie gets everything but the brownstone, of course.
I don't want to give too much away, but Marie, despite being a homewrecker and a kidnapper, a thief and an adulteress, is not the worst character in this book - and the badness of the others is breathtaking. Short, picturesque, and mesmerizing. Bad Marie: good novel.
February 18, 2011
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.
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.
February 17, 2011
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 time. I so, so wanted a different end for Marie. It's a testimony to Dermansky's skill that she delivered the right ending to this novel, an ending that although inevitable was also surprising and affecting. On finishing this novel, I felt the same pain I've felt on losing a loved one--that mad desire to turn back time, to bring back the dead. I found Marie's quiet acceptance at the end of this novel instructive and healing. So much about life is about putting up a good fight, it's also about accepting what we can't change.
Thank you, Marcy Dermansky for this wonderful novel and memorable protagonist.
4.5 stars.
That sense of the inevitable and the impossible at the end of the novel will stay with me for a long time. I so, so wanted a different end for Marie. It's a testimony to Dermansky's skill that she delivered the right ending to this novel, an ending that although inevitable was also surprising and affecting. On finishing this novel, I felt the same pain I've felt on losing a loved one--that mad desire to turn back time, to bring back the dead. I found Marie's quiet acceptance at the end of this novel instructive and healing. So much about life is about putting up a good fight, it's also about accepting what we can't change.
Thank you, Marcy Dermansky for this wonderful novel and memorable protagonist.
4.5 stars.
March 5, 2011
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, and suicide? I have no idea. To show that life is a hideous nightmare, even in Paris and on the beach? This book actually nauseated me.
Some readers have actually applauded the vile and pathetic 'heroine' because she does whatever she wants to do. But this is a clear misreading, because even the author, for all of her willingness to roll around in shit, shows that the protagonist is deluded and doesn't belong outside of an institution. I read this because it is bracketed in the Morning News Tournament of Books, but consequently I've lost all respect for that competition. By the way, the cover is ugly too.
Some readers have actually applauded the vile and pathetic 'heroine' because she does whatever she wants to do. But this is a clear misreading, because even the author, for all of her willingness to roll around in shit, shows that the protagonist is deluded and doesn't belong outside of an institution. I read this because it is bracketed in the Morning News Tournament of Books, but consequently I've lost all respect for that competition. By the way, the cover is ugly too.
July 18, 2017
Marie, the lead character of Bad Marie, is bad—a fuck up—but she's not evil. Mostly she's not very ambitious, an underachiever who, after being released from prison, is waiting for the big next thing in her life to just happen of its own accord. Well, it does.
This is the second of Ms. Dermansky's novels that I have read, and what I loved about both of them, besides the adventures that the lead characters go on, is that I'm always surprised, I never know what will happen next. I get to go along on the ride with them.
Somehow the author has succeeded in making the self-centered Marie a sympathetic character. I rooted for her even though I knew she was "bad" (and maybe it was because the other characters were worse), and even though I (and Marie herself) knew that the adventure probably wasn't going to last very long or end well.
This is the second of Ms. Dermansky's novels that I have read, and what I loved about both of them, besides the adventures that the lead characters go on, is that I'm always surprised, I never know what will happen next. I get to go along on the ride with them.
Somehow the author has succeeded in making the self-centered Marie a sympathetic character. I rooted for her even though I knew she was "bad" (and maybe it was because the other characters were worse), and even though I (and Marie herself) knew that the adventure probably wasn't going to last very long or end well.
September 3, 2019
I’m a nice woman. A good sister. And a great mom.
I really shouldn’t like Marie. She steals jewelry, clothing, husbands and kids. All while enjoying whiskey. She really is bad.
However, thanks to Marcy Dermansky’s skilled writing, I completely empathize with Marie. She’s real and raw and selfish and terribly vulnerable. I am rooting for her to get it together while still wanting her to get away with baby Caitlin.
This is only my second Dermansky book. I love her writing and think she is pretty darn talented. I mentioned her books to friends and they have been enjoying her stuff for years. Selfish bitches could of given me a heads up, I love satire and dark humor.
Anyway, I think the characters are rotten, but this book is delicious! Enjoy!
I really shouldn’t like Marie. She steals jewelry, clothing, husbands and kids. All while enjoying whiskey. She really is bad.
However, thanks to Marcy Dermansky’s skilled writing, I completely empathize with Marie. She’s real and raw and selfish and terribly vulnerable. I am rooting for her to get it together while still wanting her to get away with baby Caitlin.
This is only my second Dermansky book. I love her writing and think she is pretty darn talented. I mentioned her books to friends and they have been enjoying her stuff for years. Selfish bitches could of given me a heads up, I love satire and dark humor.
Anyway, I think the characters are rotten, but this book is delicious! Enjoy!
April 18, 2021
Oops, I flew through Bad Marie! A friend gifted me this book as a light distraction in a difficult time and OMG WHAT A FANTASTIC ROMP OF A NOVEL IT IS! Dermansky is masterful at continuing to escalate the situation. After reading a novel recently that was light on plot, this one was fun and refreshing because the plot is relentless. The hits keep coming! Shit gets crazier and crazier with no signs of stopping.
Marie is such an entertaining protagonist, and despite how horrifying her actions are, she’s not remotely despicable. You’re so in her head, you’re almost like “yeah that seems reasonable” until you distance yourself for a second and are like “WAIT WHAT?!” At no point did I know where this book was going.
This novel is hilarious and smart, would definitely recommend it.
Marie is such an entertaining protagonist, and despite how horrifying her actions are, she’s not remotely despicable. You’re so in her head, you’re almost like “yeah that seems reasonable” until you distance yourself for a second and are like “WAIT WHAT?!” At no point did I know where this book was going.
This novel is hilarious and smart, would definitely recommend it.
June 26, 2010
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.
May 7, 2015
It was intriguing to be inside the head of Marie. I've never come across a character like her. I would guess she is a sociopath, consumed with only herself and her immediate desires. She will take you on an unexpected journey and you will not be able to put the book down! Can't wait to read Marcy Dermansky's other novel, The Twins!
November 13, 2010
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.
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.
June 24, 2024
Burned through this in 48 hours and I wasn’t even trying.
Bad Marie is a hard character to like, but fun to follow around on her adventures. I kept marveling at her talent for self-delusion and wondering where her brazenness would take her next. People who need to like a character to like a book may not enjoy this, but I appreciated the plot-driven story, the entertainment value, and the wry writing.
This is a woman whose moral compass is permanently on the fritz. Marie is always just Marie, self-absorbed, narcissistic, living for the moment and her own immediate needs, worrying only about where she is going to get her next meal, hopefully a gourmet one, or find her next bathtub (she really likes her baths, usually with a bottle of whiskey). Her exploits are fun to watch, whether she is running away with her friend/employer’s husband and baby, eating croissants in Paris, dodging police officers on the Champs de Elysee, dating a famous actor in Nice, trying to re-connect with her dead lover’s family (not the friend’s husband – other one, the bank robber), or using stolen credit cards to check into high-end Mexican resorts, all with a kidnapped 2-year-old in tow. Inconvenient things annoy her, such as how, in France, everybody is always speaking French, or how she has to deal with the friend’s husband’s grief when his grandmother dies (when will he stop whining!). When the toddler gets fussy, she feels sorry for herself (Hello! You kidnapped this child). And nothing is ever her fault, nothing is ever her responsibility. Occasionally she ruminates on the topics of fate and planning, but there are no revelations here, just always more delusions and a repetition of her philosophy that she never has regrets. Actually this is repeated so frequently, I think the lady doth protest too much.
Although some of the people around her are themselves about as bad as she is, the best parts are where she gets judgmental about other people’s morality. Hilarious.
Bad Marie is a hard character to like, but fun to follow around on her adventures. I kept marveling at her talent for self-delusion and wondering where her brazenness would take her next. People who need to like a character to like a book may not enjoy this, but I appreciated the plot-driven story, the entertainment value, and the wry writing.
This is a woman whose moral compass is permanently on the fritz. Marie is always just Marie, self-absorbed, narcissistic, living for the moment and her own immediate needs, worrying only about where she is going to get her next meal, hopefully a gourmet one, or find her next bathtub (she really likes her baths, usually with a bottle of whiskey). Her exploits are fun to watch, whether she is running away with her friend/employer’s husband and baby, eating croissants in Paris, dodging police officers on the Champs de Elysee, dating a famous actor in Nice, trying to re-connect with her dead lover’s family (not the friend’s husband – other one, the bank robber), or using stolen credit cards to check into high-end Mexican resorts, all with a kidnapped 2-year-old in tow. Inconvenient things annoy her, such as how, in France, everybody is always speaking French, or how she has to deal with the friend’s husband’s grief when his grandmother dies (when will he stop whining!). When the toddler gets fussy, she feels sorry for herself (Hello! You kidnapped this child). And nothing is ever her fault, nothing is ever her responsibility. Occasionally she ruminates on the topics of fate and planning, but there are no revelations here, just always more delusions and a repetition of her philosophy that she never has regrets. Actually this is repeated so frequently, I think the lady doth protest too much.
Although some of the people around her are themselves about as bad as she is, the best parts are where she gets judgmental about other people’s morality. Hilarious.
February 7, 2017
So strange and wonderful. Bad Marie makes one bad, no make that "catastrophic," choice after another. It begins with a love affair with an accomplice to a bank robbery and murderer, flight from the law, and six years in jail.
Marie is bad but so believable and so oddly likable. Like Marie's life, the book is pure escape, hurtling from one choice and piece of bad luck after another. I have one more Dermansky book to read. She's going to have to get busy so I can keep reading her.
Marie is bad but so believable and so oddly likable. Like Marie's life, the book is pure escape, hurtling from one choice and piece of bad luck after another. I have one more Dermansky book to read. She's going to have to get busy so I can keep reading her.
March 3, 2017
I have to give this novel 5 stars because I can't see how Marcy Dermansky could have done a better job protraying Marie. As bad as Marie is, I found myself rooting her on and hoping for redemption. It's a real page turner. Dermansky's prose is extremely readable and contemporary. This is a fun read.
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