The Marcy Stories

Poetic, funny, touching, and fill in your own list of superlatives. After reading the Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood, I read The Marcy Stories, and it was like night and day; I wondered why I had ever waisted my time in the south with caricatures and stereotypes when up north was full of real people. Fran Zell's book was a joy to read. I savored her word choice, her style. The stories were snipets, episodes running chronologically telling the life of a child, an awkward teen, a searching young woman, and finally a mature woman who has come to terms with the experiences of love in her life. Sometimes I wanted to shake Marcy and set her straight; other times I just wanted to comfort her or laugh with her. I laughed and I cried. And I marveled at the presentation; Zell sometimes jumped forward and then back in time within a chapter all to great effect and without confusing this reader. Wonderful book.

The Marcy Stories made me laugh and cry. Fran Zell's book of linked stories revolve around a funny and all too human family, and she captures their characters in brilliant gestures. There is no padding in her prose, no showing off, no boring analysis. It's a great travel read. From the first lines it's riviting. One might call it a great woman's book, but I think men would enjoy her daring, too. "Policeman's Wife" is one of my favorite stories of all time, raising the hair on the back of the neck with its honesty. "Love is my Drug of Choice" is a strong, daring story that tells the theme of the whole collection. In each story, the characters come alive and, for all their outrageous acts, weasel their way into the reader's heart.

Unlike the source of so many glowing reviews, I am not a friend or relative of the author. And I am confident to say that if ever there was a book of powerful theme, and an author with the talent for words to carry it through, The Marcy Stories is the book; Fran Zell is that author. I cannot express the appreciation I have for the flow of words, for the creative expression, for the uniqueness of character so deftly expressed. In the hands of so many other authors, themes of personal growth and awareness, faltering young adulthood, sexual abuse, ultimate sexual awareness -- all fall short as being too blunt, one-sided, and unsatisfying. Not so with The Marcy Stories. Fran Zell has the unique gift of showing things through the eyes of the characters, unreliable viewpoints, leaving hiints behind about the truth, and then presenting the truth against all this backdrop so that the reader is personally impacted. The shame of this all is that The Marcy Stories should be in the hands of millions of readers, but that the current state of affairs in the book system, the book review system, and the willingness of stores to stock and place such exqusite books where they can be seen is buried beneath a misperceived notion in the industry of how to make the fast buck via much lesser works and authors. I hope word of mouth blossoms for The Marcy Stories because quite frankly it is a book that takes a back seat to none, and is the epitome of how a story should be written, to be studied by all others wanting to write quality fiction. Am I being too complimentary? You wouldn't think so if you read The Marcy Stories for yourself. To you, Fran Zell, as a reader, thank you so much for producing one of the finest pieces of literature I have read in a long, long time.

I loved the Marcy stories! I've been telling everyone to read this book. It was a real page-turner. I never lost empathy with the characters. There was never a moment when I felt the heavy hand of the author, no clumsiness. It was so polished. I really liked the chronological sequencing of the stories; it felt like I was reading one long novel, with Marcy as its central character. My husband and my 31-year-old daughter read it and really enjoyed it, too. We don't often get the three of us liking the same book.

Marcy Rosen is a plucky child, determined to have her questions answered, and determined, as an adult, to find the love that seems to have eluded her. Author Fran Zell is lush with telling description as in the story "Piano Lessons," where Mrs. Brummer, Marcy's piano teacher admonishes her to, "Schmaltz it up in that particular part," and Marcy's thinking she doesn't understand the word in relation to music, but "tried to play the way the notes spoke to me, glomming on to the sad, melancholic parts with particular ease, growing up in a household where longing bloomed like perennial flowers on a thickening vine." Marcy goes through a string of boyfriends, and marriage to an emotionally sadistic policeman, but thinks enough of herself to end these potentially destructive relationships, and comes through it all to find the surprising true love of her life. This is a great gift book for siblings (Marcy has a younger brother David who figures prominently in several of the stories), for teenagers ("Jane Majeski's Thirteenth Birthday"), for parents (Marcy's struggling relationship with both her father and mother), for those on a spiritual quest ("Sunday School Blues"), and anyone seeking a satisfyingly "real" read. Very highly recommended.