Helpful Score: 1
First Line: Thrill parties every night over on Hussel Street.
It's 1931 in Phoenix, Arizona. Young wife, Marion Seeley, has been left in town while her doctor husband travels to work in Mexico. She has a job as a clerk in a clinic, and she soon falls under the spell of a nurse who also works there. Louise and her roommate Ginny love to party, and slowly but surely they seduce Marion from her strict upbringing and from the promises she made to her husband. It's been months since Marion has heard from her spouse, and handsome Joe Lanigan is right there smiling at her every night when she attends her friends' parties.
Marion's life is about to change forever.
Abbott loosely based her novel on the case of Winnie Ruth Judd, with which I'm familiar. I was surprised by how quickly I left my prior knowledge behind and how totally caught up I became by this story. The author did an excellent job of making me feel as though I were in Depression-era Phoenix without overdoing on either the details or the slang. Even though I knew how the original case had gone, the end of the book was still hard-hitting and unexpected.
I wasn't quite ready for Marion's story to end, and that's one of the many reasons why I'm looking forward to reading Abbott's other books.
It's 1931 in Phoenix, Arizona. Young wife, Marion Seeley, has been left in town while her doctor husband travels to work in Mexico. She has a job as a clerk in a clinic, and she soon falls under the spell of a nurse who also works there. Louise and her roommate Ginny love to party, and slowly but surely they seduce Marion from her strict upbringing and from the promises she made to her husband. It's been months since Marion has heard from her spouse, and handsome Joe Lanigan is right there smiling at her every night when she attends her friends' parties.
Marion's life is about to change forever.
Abbott loosely based her novel on the case of Winnie Ruth Judd, with which I'm familiar. I was surprised by how quickly I left my prior knowledge behind and how totally caught up I became by this story. The author did an excellent job of making me feel as though I were in Depression-era Phoenix without overdoing on either the details or the slang. Even though I knew how the original case had gone, the end of the book was still hard-hitting and unexpected.
I wasn't quite ready for Marion's story to end, and that's one of the many reasons why I'm looking forward to reading Abbott's other books.
BURY ME DEEP is a stunning piece of noir. Megan Abbott effortlessly brings the reader into 1930's Phoenix and into the parties and excesses. The questionable morality of the time and place is shown to us through the prim and proper eyes of the focus character as we see her, in her loneliness and despair; react, accept, then bend, bend and ultimately break as she comes into her sexual awareness. All too soon, sex and sin becomes, somehow, darker and then darker still.
A stunning work. Painful and wonderful. Fantastic!
A stunning work. Painful and wonderful. Fantastic!
After I read "The Song is You" I set about reading everything Megan Abbott had ever written, but unfortunately none of her other novels seems to match it. I liked this one the least. As far as I can tell, it's deliberately written to distance the reader from the characters. Success!
Once you get used to the 'noir' style, the is a terrific book. Based on a true story, it takes you back to the '30's, and the life of Marion, who is not prepared for where life takes her. Megan Abbott's books are always engrossing, well written and thought provoking.
This story is based on an actual event but Megan Abbot decided to change the outcome of her story.
Its 1931 and Marion Seeleys husband is a doctor with a drug addiction. In order to work, he must go to Mexico and provide medical assistance to poor miners. He feels its too dangerous for her to go to with him, so he leaves her in Phoenix, where she works for a local doctor as a transcriptionist.
Marion befriends Louise, an outgoing nurse, and her roommate Ginnie, who is suffering from tuberculosis. Louise and Ginnie are party girls and spend many evenings entertaining the wealthy local men. Marion finds herself drawn into their lifestyle and into an affair with a wealthy local man.
Then things fall apart and Marion is entangled in the deaths of her friends and facing her husband with her infidelities.
I had a hard time getting into the story its written in a very noir vein. But once I got used to the writing style, one you would expect from a writer of that era rather than this, I found myself drawn into the story.
Its 1931 and Marion Seeleys husband is a doctor with a drug addiction. In order to work, he must go to Mexico and provide medical assistance to poor miners. He feels its too dangerous for her to go to with him, so he leaves her in Phoenix, where she works for a local doctor as a transcriptionist.
Marion befriends Louise, an outgoing nurse, and her roommate Ginnie, who is suffering from tuberculosis. Louise and Ginnie are party girls and spend many evenings entertaining the wealthy local men. Marion finds herself drawn into their lifestyle and into an affair with a wealthy local man.
Then things fall apart and Marion is entangled in the deaths of her friends and facing her husband with her infidelities.
I had a hard time getting into the story its written in a very noir vein. But once I got used to the writing style, one you would expect from a writer of that era rather than this, I found myself drawn into the story.
