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WORK TITLE: The Misfortune of Marion Palm
WORK NOTES:
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https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/2144811/emily-culliton * https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/books/2017/08/10/one-best-and-hopefully-last-brooklyn-novels/MIFfqwpzr2UuPmXDTFxfbN/story.html * http://www.seattlepi.com/lifestyle/blogcritics/article/Interview-Emily-Culliton-Author-of-The-12240041.php
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born in Brooklyn, NY.
EDUCATION:University of Massachusetts Amherst, M.F.A.; University of Denver, postgraduate studies.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Emily Culliton is a writer who was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. She holds an M.F.A. degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and is a Ph.D. candidate in fiction at the University of Denver.
Culliton’s first novel is The Misfortune of Marion Palm. The title character, Marion Palm, lives in Brooklyn Heights, an upscale section of the borough of Brooklyn. Her often oblivious husband, Nathan, lives off the proceeds of a trust fund and writes wretched poetry. Marion has long been accustomed to fancy vacations, a high-dollar home, and the best of electronics and other equipment. The money for these luxuries has come not from Nathan’s trust fund, nor from her income as a worker in the development office at her daughter’s private school. Unfortunately, it has come from a large sum of money that Marion has gradually embezzled from the school. When the school is scheduled for an audit and Marion is sure her theft will be discovered, she stuffs $40,000 in cash into a knapsack and flees, leaving behind husband, two daughters, and the life she knew—and, at the same time, a furious school board whose members desperately want to find her.
Marion doesn’t get far in her flight from justice, not because she is caught but because she simply ends up in a sleazy section of Brooklyn not far from her former home. With Marion gone, the family she left behind must learn how to cope with her absence. Neither Nathan, nor daughters Ginny and Jane, knows where she is or why she has left, and they see her disappearance as a tragic event. Clueless Nathan struggles to take care of his daughters while the two girls endure emotional distress over their mother’s absence. Before the story is resolved, each of these characters will have to grapple with unaccustomed changes in their lives and in what they thought they knew about each other.
“Culliton aims to expose the lie of polite society, Brooklyn-based or otherwise, its barely suppressed derangements and contradictions. Locked within each character: an ugly secret self she tries feverishly to suppress, one fomented by her poisonous surroundings,” observed Eugenia Williamson in a Boston Globe review. Williams further remarked: “Culliton’s narrative is fueled by the acid that drips quietly beneath every city sidewalk where white people gather to discuss community gardens and property taxes.”
“Culliton’s assured and clever novel reads more like that of a seasoned novelist than a debut,” commented Kathy Sexton, writing in Booklist. A Library Journal writer called the book a “wildly entertaining debut.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, July 1, 2017, Kathy Sexton, review of The Misfortune of Marion Palm, p. 22.
Boston Globe, August 11, 2017, Eugenia Williamson, “One of the Best (and Hopefully the Last) of Brooklyn Novels,” review of The Misfortune of Marion Palm.
Library Journal, June 15, 2017, review of The Misfortune of Marion Palm, p. 2A.
ONLINE
Blogcritics, http://www.blogcritics.org/ (September 28, 2017), Adriana Delgado, “Interview: Emily Culliton, Author of The Misfortune of Marion Palm.”
Penguin Random House Website, http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/ (February 9, 2018), biography of Emily Culliton.
Interview: Emily Culliton, Author of ‘The Misfortune of Marion Palm’
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Emily Culliton’s debut novel, The Misfortune of Marion Palm, relates the dark comedic tale of a Brooklyn Heights wife and mother who, after embezzling a small fortune from her daughters’ private school, decides to go on the run, leaving behind her children and her trust-fund writer husband Nathan, not to mention the life she used to know, with wildly unpredicted results.
Emily Culliton, author of The Misfortune of Marion Palm. Photo credit: Beowulf Sheehan
It comes as no surprise that Culliton names dark comedy as one of her favorite literary genres. “I particularly enjoy the ones written by women,” Culliton said. “Muriel Sparks was a big influence on me. Especially after World War II, she wrote many dark comedies about the social system and how it broke down, doing it with not only dry humor but also in bizarrely structured ways. I enjoy a good mystery, so Agatha Christie is very important to me.”
Due to the nature of the story, which between wildly funny scenarios also interjects the more serious topic of two children abandoned by their mother and the consequences that follow Marion’s decision to leave them, I wanted to ask Emily Culliton what could be so fascinating about a mother who cuts loose from her family.
What was it about writing a story where a wife and mother goes rogue and on the run, that appealed to you?
I think it was the exploration of a fantasy. Giving up everything all your responsibilities and having the opportunity to become an entirely new person. Many of us might have this fantasy, but what happens afterwards? I’m not a mother or a wife, but I wanted to see what this character would do and how it would ripple out and affect the people around her.
The Misfortune of Marion Palm has been compared by some to Maria Semple’s novel, Where’d You Go Bernadette? Do you see the similarities between the two?
I read it after I finished writing my book because my agent suggested it. She said, “you should read this other ‘mom on the run’ book.” And I loved it. But I think she (Maria Semple) is up to something very different, because the mother (in her novel) is definitely nicer than mine! (laughs)
Marion’s motivations for doing what she does are at times unclear. Are her intentions to cut the cord completely with her family or just to experience a different life for a while?
When I wrote it, I was exploring the angle that this is a woman who ultimately believes she’s going to be caught, that she’ll have to pay for what she’s done and that her family will too. At the end of the day, Marion believes she is someone who shouldn’t be around her daughters and that she will be as terrible as her own mother was.
I wrote Marion as a not very sentimental character to begin with, and I think she would be a “rip the band-aid off” kind of person. She’s panicking too, she knows that the school is about to be audited and she must make a series of decisions very quickly. They may not be the best decisions, but she commits to them.
Would you say she cares about her daughters even though she leaves them behind?
I think she does. I believe she cares about the women they’re going to become and how they’re going to be treated in the world. I think in some ways she knows that they’re more Nathan’s kids than hers. That they’ll fit into Brooklyn in ways that she never did and have opportunities that were not available to her. The ways that she cares for them are not the ways we expect mothers to care for their children. In truth Marion never wanted to be a mom, but then she became one. Now, she’s looking forward to this new part of her life as well.
How difficult was it to balance the humor in the novel with the more serious issues like abandonment and embezzlement?
In many ways, it was a pleasure to write Marion because she doesn’t dwell on what she’s done. I could be lighter there and look at the humor of the situation. Also, with Nathan I could play around, but then when I got to the kids I thought, ‘well something bad has happened to them, they just suffered a trauma.’ Trying to write how they would react to their mother’s disappearance and not getting bogged down in those scenes, trying to keep it active was challenging. But I had to admit that they would react strongly to their mother going away.
Were you concerned that readers wouldn’t connect with Marion? She’s not a very sympathetic character.
I try not to think about that (laughs). I mostly wanted to make sure that with the decisions she makes, the reader also follows along with her. Maybe I was hoping that the thrill of it would be compelling, going off on your own and leaving behind the person that you once were.
Is Marion running from something else besides the authorities? Maybe escaping a life she doesn’t want?
Oh absolutely! She’s actually proud of the way she embezzles, how smart and crafty she is and she wants recognition for that. So, she’s also running towards what she could be if someone just gave her the chance.
Marion doesn’t really seem to be that much in love with her husband, or he in love with her for that matter.
I think he loves her at the beginning. She does make his life better (laughs). His life definitely becomes more meaningful to him when she’s there, but I don’t know if he quite understands what he loves about her. I don’t think Marion is concerned about Nathan that much.
The ending is quite a surprising one. Was that the one you visualized from the start?
I had no idea where it would all end up. I think part of it was the structure, how all these things were unfolding and how the story would step forward. The final note at the end was my editor’s idea. The original ending was the scene before that, and my editor told me, ‘you need something more here.’ I did feel that Marion’s daughters are the heroes of this story. Both Marion and Nathan are so wrapped up in their own minds that they don’t realize they have these two girls who by and large are surviving.
Can we expect a new novel from you soon?
I’m working on it as we speak! It’s a bit early to reveal much, but it’s about another woman behaving badly. That’s all I can say right now.
Emily Culliton
Photo of Emily Culliton
Photo: © Beowulf Sheehan
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
EMILY CULLITON is a PhD candidate at the University of Denver for fiction and earned her MFA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She was born and raised in Brooklyn.
The Misfortune of Marion Palm
Kathy Sexton
Booklist.
113.21 (July 1, 2017): p22.
COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
* The Misfortune of Marion Palm.
By Emily Culliton.
Aug. 2017.304p. Knopf, $24.95 (9781524731908).
Culliton's assured and clever novel reads more like that of a seasoned novelist than a debut. Marion Palm is
used to a certain lifestyle. Unfortunately, the European vacations, fancy house, and state-of-the-art exercise
equipment have been paid for with money embezzled from her daughters' private school. With the school
facing an audit, Marion launches her escape plan, consisting of stuffing $40,000 in cash into a knapsack and
leaving. However, she doesn't get very far, and instead ends up in a seedier part of Brooklyn that's fairly
near to the very family she abandoned. Her husband, Nathan, a clueless poet, is left with taking care of the
day-to-day needs of himself and their daughters, teen Ginny and younger Jane, who are struggling, each in
her own way, with their mother's disappearance. Culliton tempers her generally unlikable characters with
short chapters, often under three pages; omniscient third-person narration; and oddly comic--think Miranda
July--writing. Readers who have wished the narration of The Royal Tenenbaums was an actual book need
look no further than The Misfortune of Marion Palm.--Kathy Sexton
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Sexton, Kathy. "The Misfortune of Marion Palm." Booklist, 1 July 2017, p. 22. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A499862697/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=35256724.
Accessed 27 Jan. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A499862697
1/27/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1517093696617 2/2
The Misfortune of Marion Palm: A novel
Emily Culliton
Library Journal.
142.11 (June 15, 2017): p2a.
COPYRIGHT 2017 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No
redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
A wildly entertaining debut about a Brooklyn Heights wife and mother who has embezzled a small fortune
from her children's private school and makes a run for it, leaving behind her trust fund poet husband, his
maybe-secret lover, her two daughters, and a school board who will do anything to find her.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
978-1-5247-3190-8 | $25.95/$34.95C | 40,000
Knopf | HC | August
* 978-1-5247-3191-5 | * AD: 978-0-525-50056-8
LITERARY FICTION
Social: @CullitonE RA: For readers of Where'd You Go Bernadette? RI: Author lives in Denver, CO and
Brooklyn, NY
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Culliton, Emily. "The Misfortune of Marion Palm: A novel." Library Journal, 15 June 2017, p. 2a. General
OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A495668137/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=6d06bbe9. Accessed 27 Jan. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A495668137
One of the best (and hopefully the last) of Brooklyn novels
0 0
By Eugenia Williamson
GLOBE CORRESPONDENT AUGUST 11, 2017
Readers of contemporary US fiction have been, for many years now, besieged by an endless scourge of novels set in Brooklyn. It is proving increasingly difficult to remember the differences among this dread legion of urbane, relentlessly well-educated characters moving through their aggressively upper-middle-class world of tastefully renovated brownstones, pricey consumer goods made in small quantities, and superior cultural literacy. The markings of this epistolary canker have become as formalized as the number of chapters it takes prudish princesses to succumb to rakish noblemen: the never-ending tug-of-war between self-awareness and cluelessness, irony and real feeling.
With any luck, “The Misfortune of Marion Palm’’ will be among the last of its ilk, not least of all because it would allow the Brooklyn burst to sputter out on a high note. Although Culliton, a native Brooklynite with an MFA from UMass-Amherst, has set her cranky and humorous debut novel in the borough of her birth, she avoids the pratfalls of her peers. Instead, she offers something in the spirit of perhaps the best of the vanguard of the Brooklyn novels: Paula Fox’s “Desperate Characters,’’ published in 1970. Like Fox, Culliton’s narrative is fueled by the acid that drips quietly beneath every city sidewalk where white people gather to discuss community gardens and property taxes. Also like Fox, Culliton aims to expose the lie of polite society, Brooklyn-based or otherwise, its barely suppressed derangements and contradictions. Locked within each character: an ugly secret self she tries feverishly to suppress, one fomented by her poisonous surroundings. Like her predecessor, Culliton delights in ripping masks clean off.
She begins with her titular protagonist, who kicks off the novel “on the lam.” Marion has embezzled around $100,000 from the private school at which she holds a part-time administrative job and has abandoned her brownstone, two young daughters, and husband for pastures unknown. Culliton tells the story from Marion’s perspective, as well as that of her family and other important characters. Like the latter groups, we are left in a state of woozy confusion. Where did Marion go? Why did she leave such an idyll? Her husband is hiding something — but what?
Just don’t mistake misfortune for tragedy. Felonious theft aside, Marion’s problems are middle-class peccadillos befitting her station. Her colleagues are neurotic and useless, her trust-fund poet husband self-centered, her social world of other private school moms unfulfilling at best.
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In contrast, embezzlement dazzles and enthralls. Marion’s criminality is at once a giant middle finger to her comfortable life, a way to add meaning to it, and ultimately a means to escape it. She is an ardent, ambitious embezzlement enthusiast, as well as a student of its female practitioners. This particular nomenclature is important, since “[embezzlers] are men” and “for women, embezzlement is a practice.” (In fact, the book teems with such wry little insights that, done poorly, would be flabby bromides but instead are pithy barbs and sometimes genuine zingers: “a homely woman is an invisible thing” or a beauty parlor appointment during which Marion pays “to be held hostage, all in the hope of becoming a slightly better woman at the end of it.”)
While Marion desperately flees normality, her husband, Nathan, tries his best to hang on to it. Nathan embodies the tropes of Brooklyn books: He is a poet/doofus with family money, and through him, we can roll our eyes at his quirky, monied affectations and those of the company he keeps, like a pair of fellow brownstoners, famous for their generosity, the female half of which has “a large smile” and “fashionable knit hats” and whose husband was a failing actor who has found great success “illustrating children’s books about his dog.”
Nathan’s adventures in starting a home-improvement-cum-parenting blog — an actual pursuit of today’s independently wealthy — are particularly chucklesome. (Nobody in these Brooklyn novels is ever a dentist or a hedge-fund manager unless they are an immigrant. Must be in the manual.)
Although Nathan’s character could fall easily into parody or cliché, his profound confusion and deep denial help lend pathos to the story. “Perhaps it’s now time to discuss Marion,” he muses, days after her disappearance. “Maybe this will sort itself out.” Spoiler: It does in a fashion, in a way that won’t allow Nathan, nor we readers, to soon forget it.
THE MISFORTUNE OF MARION PALM
By Emily Culliton
Knopf, 282 pp., $25.95
Eugenia Williamson is a writer and editor based in Chicago.