Bury Me Deep: A Novel (Paperback)

Bury Me Deep: A Novel By Megan Abbott Cover Image
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August 2009 Indie Next List


“Megan Abbott's Jazz Age tale based on the infamous Winnie Ruth Judd 'trunk murderess' case immediately and convincingly transports the reader into a compelling, noir-tinged world. Her use of period detail and language is masterful, and the characters are vividly and sensitively drawn, as the narrative inevitably unfolds to its shocking conclusion.”
— Jamie Agnew, Aunt Agatha's Ltd., Ann Arbor, MI

Description


Edgar Award–winning author and “reigning crown princess of noir” (Booklist) Megan Abbott reignites in Bury Me Deep the hothouse of jealousy, illicit sex, shifting loyalties, and dark perversions of power that marked a true-life case born of Depression-era Phoenix, reimagined here as a timeless portrait of the dark side of desire.

By the author of Dare Me and The End of Everything

In October 1931, a station agent found two large trunks abandoned in Los Angeles’s Southern Pacific Station. What he found inside ignited one of the most scandalous tabloid sensations of the decade.

Inspired by this notorious true crime, Edgar®-winning author Megan Abbott’s novel Bury Me Deep is the story of Marion Seeley, a young woman abandoned in Phoenix by her doctor husband. At the medical clinic where she finds a job, Marion becomes fast friends with Louise, a vivacious nurse, and her roommate, Ginny, a tubercular blonde. Before long, the demure Marion is swept up in the exuberant life of the girls, who supplement their scant income by entertaining the town’s most powerful men with wild parties. At one of these events, Marion meets—and falls hard for—the charming Joe Lanigan, a local rogue and politician on the rise, whose ties to all three women bring events to a dangerous collision.

A story born of Jazz Age decadence and Depression-era desperation, Bury Me Deep—with its hothouse of jealousy, illicit sex and shifting loyalties—is a timeless portrait of the dark side of desire and the glimmer of redemption.

About the Author


Megan Abbott is the author of three acclaimed novels, the Edgar Award–winning Queenpin, The Song Is You, and Die a Little. She lives in New York City. 

Praise For…


"Word for word, pound for pound, Megan Abbott delivers more than any writer I know. Her influences appear to range from Hollywood Babylon to Theodore Dreiser, but her work transcends pastiche and homage. Bury Me Deep extends an already jaw-dropping winning streak, showcasing Abbott's gorgeous prose and clear-eyed empathy. She is simply one of the most exciting and original voices of her generation." -- Laura Lippman, New York Times bestselling author of What the Dead Know

"Working once more...from a true crime... Edgar-winner Abbott brings the era to life...Her nearly stream-of-consciousness narration is direct and powerful...her prose carries an urgency that brings hard-boiled crime fiction kicking and screaming into the modern age. Abbott takes readers on a wild thrill ride with an utterly believable and strangely sympathetic heroine." -- Kirkus, Starred Review

"In [Bury Me Deep] Abbott turns the stuff of sensational confession magazines into a rich meditation on the unclouded depths of the soul." -- Carl Rosen, New York magazine

"[F]abulous characters, delectable plotting, a unique story and a steamy yet gossamer setting....A stunning work of fiction, it is Abbott's love for her central character that makes Bury Me Deep so accessible and so far away at the same time. Imagine Hammett wrote Daisy Buchanan and not Fitzgerald. And you are Gatsby... so close and yet so far away. This is Bury Me Deep." -- Ruth Jordan, Crimespree

"Edgar-winner Abbott...explores gender inequality and its sometimes tragic results in her well-crafted fourth crime novel...that leads to murder and a startling predicament...Readers should be prepared for...a shocking ending." -- Publishers Weekly

"[S]omething for everyone: true crime (it's based on a notorious 1930s trunk murderess' case), plus it's a women's story with noir embellishments. It has tough times, drugs, and pandemics. It screams 'today!' -- only retro. Done in that rat-a-tat delivery that...can't miss. Recommended heartily for fans of Edgar Award-winning Abbott's retro-noir crime fiction." -- Library Journal

"In a word: amazing. In more words: Megan Abbott, who has never delivered anything less than an excellent novel, exceeds expectations and takes a very bold and very necessary step forward both in the quality of the prose, the development of her characters and especially in portraying how obsession seeps into the very soul of people, transforming them into their worst nightmares all too easily. Just read this book. And then tell many others to do so as well." -- Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind

"Megan Abbott's virtuoso fiction [is comparable] to the great James M. Cain....Bury Me Deep is literary fiction that happens to include a crime...beautifully wrought...[Abbott is] an author destined to be a leading writer of her generation." -- W.E. Reinka, Mystery News, FIVE STARS

"[A] cunningly fictionalized...exquisite book, told in delicate, shimmering prose that heightens the nightmarish quality of the story. Megan Abbott is often compared with James Ellroy...but her writing is far more economical and focused, and her sensibilities are feminine to the core. This is noir mystery writing at its very best." -- Tom and Enid Schantz, The Denver Post


Product Details
ISBN: 9781416599098
ISBN-10: 1416599096
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication Date: July 7th, 2009
Pages: 240
Language: English