Marlena

In Julie Buntin's Marlena, fifteen year-old Catherine encounters the friend who will change her world forever, the titular Marlena, because she happens to move next door to Marlena's family. A year earlier she'd been known as Cathy, a motivated student at a private high school outside of Detroit, but then her parents divorced and her mother, short on resources, moves her and her brother Jimmy to the northern Lower Peninsula to start over. Catherine decides to become Cat, and her seventeen year-old neighbor becomes her best friend. Marlena is what could be delicately described as a troubled young woman: her mother has long since vanished and her father cooks meth in the woods, she's the closest thing her decade-younger brother has to a parent, she's hooked on opiates and has a squicky relationship with the older man who provides her pills to her. The intense friendship that springs up between the girls draws Cat into a new world: drugs and booze and sex and cutting class. But after a year, Cat tells us, Marlena will be dead, found drowned in a shallow stream in the woods.

The story is told on two tracks: mostly the story of the year in which Marlena was a part of Cat's life, but also Cat all grown up, working at a library in New York City, long past that time in her life. Or is she? The unhealthy relationship she developed as a teenager with alcohol is still with her, threatening to unwind her relationship and career. This is not as successful a framing mechanism as it could be: the portions in Michigan are dominant and the underdevelopment of the portions in New York render them almost superfluous. I think with some editing to balance out the narratives better, the book would have been more powerful. As it is, it's good: the friendship between the girls rings true, and Buntin draws them and the supporting characters in ways that make them complex and interesting, but frustrating because it could have been better. I'd still recommend it, though, especially for those that enjoy stories about strong female friendships and coming-of-age stories.

Marlena is the story of an adult woman looking back at her teenage friendship with a neighbor girl two years older than her. Although the friendship lasted less than a year, it was formational for her in ways that she doesn't fully understand. As the story moves between the woman's present life and her memories of Marlena, she acknowledges the grip of the past and begins to see the possibility of a future.

It's not as therapeutic as it sounds. The teenagers have broken families, they are reckless with themselves and others, and they cause permanent harm. The question at the end is whether the girl who's left will be able to move forward.

The danger I felt with this book is that it could so easily lapse into cautionary-tale-about-wild-girls-becoming-adult-druggies, OR wild-teenager-finds-redemption. However, many details kept it from lapsing into cliche and allowed it to be its own story. I appreciated the main character's mother, especially, who is a bit distracted by her own troubles, but is an admirable person.

I read this for the Morning News Summer Reading Challenge. I wouldn't have picked this book for myself, but I'm glad I read it.