Marlena

A National Book Critics Circle Leonard Prize Finalist
Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
Named a Best Book of the Year by Vogue, BuzzFeed, The Washington Post, Esquire, Harper's Bazaar, NPR, NYLON, Huffington Post, Kirkus Reviews, Barnes & Noble
Chosen for the Book of the Month Club, Nylon Book Club, and Belletrist Book Club
Named an Indie Next Pick and a Barnes and Noble Discover Pick

Everything about fifteen-year-old Cat's new town in rural Michigan is lonely and off-kilter until she meets her neighbor, the manic, beautiful, pill-popping Marlena. Cat is quickly drawn into Marlena's orbit and as she catalogues a litany of firsts--first drink, first cigarette, first kiss, first pill--Marlena's habits harden and calcify. Within a year, Marlena is dead, drowned in six inches of icy water in the woods nearby. Now, decades later, Cat must try again to move on, even as the memory of Marlena calls her back.

Told in a haunting dialogue between past and present, Marlena is the captivating story of an intoxicating, indelible friendship that does not flinch from the resonant effects of its loss.

Author: Julie Buntin
Publisher: Picador USA
Published: 04/03/2018
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.56lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.40w x 0.70d
ISBN13: 9781250160157
ISBN10: 1250160154
BISAC Categories:
- Fiction | Literary
- Fiction | Women
- Fiction | Friendship

About the Author
Julie Buntin is from northern Michigan. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, Cosmopolitan, O, The Oprah Magazine, Slate, Electric Literature, and One Teen Story, among other publications. She teaches fiction at Marymount Manhattan College, and is the Director of Writing Programs at Catapult. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. Marlena is her first novel.