Marlena

Starred review from November 14, 2016
In her impressive debut novel, Buntin displays a remarkable control of tone and narrative arc. In a keenly observed study of teenage character, narrator Catherine, 15, is miserable in the ramshackle house her newly divorced mother has bought in the dismal town of Silver Lake in northern Michigan. When she meets Marlena, her glamorous 17-year-old next-door neighbor, Cat is smitten with the euphoria of having a best friend. Buntin is particularly sensitive to the misery of adolescent angst, and Cat’s growing happiness in Marlena’s friendship runs like an electric wire through the narrative. Marlena is dangerous, however: she runs with a bad crowd, and her father cooks meth. From the beginning, we know that Marlena is irresistible, reckless, and brave; she’s a mother substitute for her forlorn younger brother—musically talented, beautiful, and doomed to die young. It’s only later that Cat understands that Marlena is the needy one in their relationship. Her bravado hides desperation; she fears she’ll never get out of Silver Lake, that she has no future, and that “there were kids like us all over rural America.” Almost 20 years later, living in New York with her husband and working at a good job, Cat is still damaged by losing Marlena. Crippled by “the pain at the utter core of me,” she takes refuge in alcohol and memories. The novel is poignant and unforgettable, a sustained eulogy for Marlena’s “glow... that lives in lost things, that sets apart the gone forever.” Agent: Claudia Ballard, WME Entertainment.

Narrator Emma Galvin brings a slightly gritty yet vulnerable-sounding voice to the main character in this audiobook. When 15-year-old Cat moves to rural Michigan, she becomes friends with Marlena, who is troubled, manic, and dangerous. Unsupported by dysfunctional parents, Cat maneuvers the minefields of peer pressure in a world filled with alcohol, drugs, and poverty. As Cat tells her own story, the listener feels a heightened sense of danger and suspense. How is it that Marlena is found drowned in six inches of water in the woods later that year? The story is told in flashbacks when Cat is an adult, and the details of her experience are revealed as a haunting yet tender story of growing up. L.M.A. � AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine