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The Misfortune of Marion Palm: A Novel Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Emily Culliton (Author), Saskia Maarleveld (Narrator), Random House Audio (Publisher)

3.5 451 ratings

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A wildly entertaining debut about a Brooklyn Heights wife and mother who has embezzled a small fortune from her children's private school and makes a run for it, leaving behind her trust fund poet husband, his maybe-secret lover, her two daughters, and a school board who will do anything to find her.

Marion Palm prefers not to think of herself as a thief but rather "a woman who embezzles". Over the years she has managed to steal $180,000 from her daughters' private school, money that has paid for European vacations, a Sub-Zero refrigerator, and perpetually unused state-of-the-art exercise equipment. But now, when the school faces an audit, Marion pulls piles of rubber-banded cash from their basement hiding places and flees, leaving her family to grapple with the baffled detectives, the irate school board, and the mother-shaped hole in their house. Told from the points of view of Nathan, Marion's husband, heir to a long-diminished family fortune; Ginny, Marion's teenage daughter who falls helplessly in love at the slightest provocation; Jane, Marion's youngest, who is obsessed with a missing person of her own; and Marion herself, on the lam - and hiding in plain sight.

Listening Length

8 hours and 31 minutes
Author

Emily Culliton
Narrator

Saskia Maarleveld
Audible release date

August 8, 2017
Language

English
Publisher

Random House Audio
ASIN

B074G5KQ2V
Version

Unabridged
Program Type

Audiobook
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Product details

Listening Length	8 hours and 31 minutes
Author	Emily Culliton
Narrator	Saskia Maarleveld
Whispersync for Voice	Ready
Audible.com Release Date	August 08, 2017
Publisher	Random House Audio
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B074G5KQ2V
Best Sellers Rank	#308,865 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #3,486 in Humorous Fiction & Satire #5,484 in Family Life Fiction (Audible Books & Originals) #10,165 in Women's Fiction (Audible Books & Originals)

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Customer reviews

3.5 out of 5

451 global ratings

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booklover343

Interesting story but some of the details were lacking

Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2017

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After reading a lot of terrific reviews of this book, I was eager to get it. While I like the author's writing style (present tense is not usually used in novels) and found some of the scenes really interesting, by and large I was disappointed. I find it difficult to really enjoy a book where the main character has no (yes, none) redeeming qualities. I imagine the author's next book will be more developed.

SPOILER ALERT....I'M GOING TO REVEAL SOME OF THE PLOT SO DON'T READ ON IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW!

Marion is an embezzler. There is no way to sugar-coat it. As the story progressed, it seemed that she had taken things that weren't hers (mostly cash) all of her life.

When she decides to take some of her stockpiled stolen cash because of an impending IRS audit where she works (the school her daughters attend), she just takes off. Leaves her husband, her home, her daughters....all behind with barely a backward glance.

There were a few details in the story that could have been better. For example, when she gets to the train station she finds that she has to have a credit card to buy a ticket (or get the clerks to sell a cash ticket which would draw attention to her). Well, I immediately thought that she could go to a bus station, where she could use cash....or go to a drug store and buy a pre-paid Visa card and then return to the train station.

You'd think with all of expertise in embezzling that she would have researched details better.

It was never explained how she got her technical expertise to steal through accounting systems and not get caught.

I also thought it was odd that she decides to stay not far from her home and rent a room in a woman's house where they are essentially roommates. For someone who wants to disappear and remain hidden, that seems (and turns out) to be a foolish move.

20 people found this helpful

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carilynp

... so believable yet bizarre that you can’t help but like them. Let’s start with Marion because it all ...

Reviewed in the United States on August 31, 2017

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Emily Culliton’s quirky novel THE MISFORTUNE OF MARION PALM with characters who are so believable yet bizarre that you can’t help but like them. Let’s start with Marion because it all revolves around her. She is unintentionally naughty. Completely lacking any self-esteem, she has been embezzling money, and not a small amount, from her children’s private school, while working a part-time job in the development office. In addition to lacking any self-worth, Marion doesn’t have much going on upstairs. She simply leaves her two girls and her husband with no word that she is, well, leaving. Marion’s deficiencies prevent her from getting away with the crime, let alone getting out of her neighborhood.

Without any clue as to why she has fled or where she is, her husband assumes it is because she is unhappy at home and is not too worried about finding her. He also knew she didn't think much of her parenting skills, so it’s kind of a good thing that she is gone. At first, the girls are worried but then, their mother’s disappearance takes its toll in other ways.

Marion lands herself in the most unusual of places where she just wants to belong. Perhaps her destiny is to always be a fish out of water. If only she had some judgement.

3 people found this helpful

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Michelle

Witty and compelling first novel

Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2017

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Emily Culliton's witty prose obscure but do not conceal the dark substance of her novel. I sped through her brief chapters and found myself truly believing in the characters that populate them. You may or may not approve of Marion's actions but you will read with increasing anxiety as you near the conclusion (or beginning?) of her story.

As a resident of Brooklyn it was exciting to read about familiar places and a familiar cast of people. The novel is grounded in a strong sense of reality and the lightness of the writing only makes it feel more connected to the bourgeois Brooklyn that I know and love.

3 people found this helpful

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Renee B. Rayel

Profound Dysfunction.

Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2018

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Marion Palm is one of the least sympathetic characters I have encountered in recent reading. Her husband is a weak and inept male and the marriage a paragon of mismatched personalities. The daughters are also deeply flawed and affected by their mothers behavior and the entire book is a bit of a trudge through troubled events. Unfortunately I was unmoved by almost everyone in the novel and the involvement of greed and money and the power to manipulate others is not a subject I tend to want to know more about. Depressing but unsurprising .

6 people found this helpful

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Mike Chadwick

A commuter book

Reviewed in the United States on June 9, 2018

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The chapters are character chapters (about one individual per chapter). That's fine, great novels are written that way. But, be warned, this book is "internet style": chapters are not deep and attention is quickly shifted to the next topic because each chapter is 1 or 2 pages long (max). I'm a little more than 1/3 of the way through, there are five characters so far and I have read 43 chapters already. It's frustrating if you really enjoy reading a book that demands sustained attention and takes you into a literary "flow" state that is an in-depth sustained journey of character and plot development. It's frustrating if you enjoy a book that allows you to escape for a while because it pulls you in so deep that you forget what time it is. This book is not that. After a page, you abandon your thoughts on that character, disengage and re-direct your attention to the next character and so on. Moreover, in each chapter, the plot is not the common thread. The chapters bounce between character background in one chapter and the character within the plot in a different chapter. There are always good "break points" making it easy to put down. This might be a good book to read when you are really busy and want to read a book, but can only only read a little before you have do something else. Finally, the jacket cover says it is hilarious--to me it does not read like a comedy, it's interesting, not particularly funny, but, then again, I enjoy Vonnegut's humor.

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Quinn Perkins

Quirky and Original

Reviewed in the United States on September 10, 2017

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This is not your run of the mill commercial novel~ it is a breath of fresh air. Different in a good way. It is not for everyone, but I enjoyed it. The characters are well drawn and the story line, while not exactly believable, was interesting enough to keep the reader interested. The relationships and motivations of the characters were richly drawn. Some funny bits, some thoughtful.

3 people found this helpful

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The Misfortune of Marion Palm: A Novel Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

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