The TalkFunny Girl, Roland Merullo
The TalkFunny Girl, Roland Merullo
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The Talk-Funny Girl
A Novel

Author: Roland Merullo

Narrator: Em Eldridge

Unabridged: 9 hr 53 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 10/24/2017


Synopsis

In one of the poorest parts of rural New Hampshire, teenage girls have been disappearing, snatched from back country roads, never to be seen alive again. For seventeen-year-old Marjorie Richards, the fear raised by these abductions is the backdrop to what she lives with in her own home, every day. Marjorie has been raised by parents so intentionally isolated from normal society that they have developed their own dialect, a kind of mountain hybrid of English that displays both their ignorance of and disdain for the wider world. Marjorie is tormented by her classmates, who call her "The Talk-Funny Girl," but as the nearby factory town sinks deeper into economic ruin and as her parents fall more completely under the influence of a sadistic cult leader, her options for escape dwindle. But then, thanks to a loving aunt, Marjorie is hired by a man, himself a victim of abuse, who is building what he calls "a cathedral," right in the center of town.

Day by day, Marjorie's skills as a stoneworker increase, and so too does her intolerance for the bitter rules of her family life. Gradually, through exposure to the world beyond her parents' wood cabin thanks to the kindness of her aunt and her boss, and an almost superhuman determination, she discovers what is loveable within herself.

About Roland Merullo

Roland Merullo is the critically acclaimed author of several books, both fiction and nonficton, including the Revere Beach trilogy, three novels about growing up in a tight-knit community outside Boston, and Golfing with God, a novel about a man's unexpected spiritual journey. Born in Boston, he graduated from Brown University, where he also earned a Master's degree in Russian Language and Literature. Roland's memoir, Revere Beach Elegy, won the 2000 Massachusetts Book Award for Non-Fiction, and his essays have appeared in the New York Times, Reader's Digest, and the Chronicle of Higher Education, among other publications. He lives with his wife and two daughters in eastern Massachusetts.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Kate on June 10, 2012

My review is more of a PSA than a book review! ;) As a social worker, The Talk-Funny Girl broke my heart because of the truth and reality of the story. It may be slated as fiction, and the author states in the very beginning that it is strictly fiction, but I guarantee there are girls out there who......more

Goodreads review by Wanda on October 02, 2019

This just got better and better with every page. Overall it was the story of overcoming abuse and the isolation and fear it brings. The characters and their relationships were so well drawn, even as aberrant as some of them were, they were wholly believable. I won't even hint at the best part becaus......more

Goodreads review by Chris on January 19, 2014

Set in rural New Hampshire, this novel tells the story of seventeen year old Marjorie Richards, a young woman with bizarre speech patterns who has endured unspeakable abuse at the hands of her parents. At the beginning of the novel Marjorie is commanded by her father to find "full pay work" or else......more

Goodreads review by Kate on March 26, 2021

Marjorie lives an isolated life with her parents, until at sixteen they send her out to get a full-time job to bring in some money for them (since neither of them work). She stumbles into work with a man named Sands who's new in town. Though at home Marjorie struggles with her parents who are part o......more