The Grift

Marina Marks works as a skeptical psychic in California who discovers one day to her great discomfort that she has an actual ability to see into the future. Needless to say, her clients liked her more when she only offered bland insipid bromides to help them muddle through their lives.

As we get to know some of Marina’s regular clients, we also learn that each of them harbors a great resentment towards her: why aren’t their lives turning out better? What did she “do” to them? Inevitably, it leads to a murder.

Figuring out who did it will take a psychic reader, since everybody has a motive: i.e., seeing a psychic seems to serve as a reminder that their lives haven’t turned out the way they wanted!

It’s a fun read that doesn’t show more go too far over the deep end in spite of the supernatural premise. show less

The Grift is a somewhat pedestrian mystery novel in which the main character--a "psychic" who makes her living by astutely assessing the psychological needs of her clientele--discovers that she does indeed possess actual psychic powers.

Ginsberg's description of the main character's modus operandi in her pre-psychic days is well-executed and believable, and her exploration of the problems encountered by a true psychic whose clients don't exactly want actual insight, extremely well-done. The clever title, in which the 'r' is alternately subscripted or bracketed, depending on where one looks--The G[r]ift--hinted at excellent things to come.

Unfortunately, the novel's compelling aspects are foiled by its pedestrian execution, which favors show more telling over showing. Ninety percent of the novel is written as follows: Character is sitting in his/her car/room/workplace/some restaurant. Character reflects on how he/she came to be there. Character reflects further on many other events that have happened in his/her past. Character resolves to complete some action in the future. Scene ends.

I can't help but thinking that The Grift would have been much more compelling if Ginsberg had actually taken the time to write the characters doing these things instead of inserting massive blocks of exposition where they'd already occurred, especially since the few scenes in which action actually takes place are pretty good.

Speaking of the action, I must mention that it hinges on one of my biggest literary pet peeves; namely, a main character who finds True Love at First Sight, for absolutely no reason other than that the plot demands that s/he do so. And whenever a book commits this sin, one can pretty much guess how it's going to end. For those who don't care about spoilers, The Grift goes for the home run: it starts off with True Love, Horrible Misunderstanding leading to Tragic Breakup, the love interest dying a Tragically Avoidable Death before reconciliation can occur, then slides into home with the inevitable Bittersweet Surprise!Pregnancy. Ugh.

There were some striking and effective scenes in The Grift; unfortunately these were overshadowed by the pages upon pages of info dumps. This novel would make a good airport or commute read, but it's definitely not something I'd recommend reading to anyone looking to invest their undivided attention in an engrossing novel. show less

Marina Marks is a fake psychic. She developed a keen ability to read people as a method of self-preservation – it helped her survive her drug-addicted mother and the string of shady boyfriends that hung around them. Her mother stuck a deck of tarot cards in Marina’s hand and she became a revenue stream, one more way to scrape the money together for another buy. And it protected Marina:

“Her razor-sharp powers of observation and her natural talent with her mother’s worn-out set of tarot cards saved Marina from molestation on more than one occasion, because while these men were too morally impaired to see the wrong in having sex with a girl her age, they were too scared to attempt the same thing with a freaky little witch. At show more least, most of them felt that way.”

Marina has turned her self-preservation into a lucrative career: she provides “intuitive counseling” to rich people who need to fill up their empty lives. She has her own guiding principles – she never gets emotionally involved with her clients, she doesn’t mind taking their money but she never drains them completely – but she breaks those rules twice and she pays dearly for it. In Florida, desperate to get away, she makes a mistake with a client. Although she tries to make good, it’s already too late. But when she opens her heart to a man she meets through her work, strange things begin to happen.

One of the things I found most interesting in the book is the way we get to see the damage Marina does, without meaning to. She gives her clients what they want – she reads their body language, absorbs their subtle clues and uses her understanding of human nature (including its darker aspects) to discern their situation and point them in the direction they want to go. The problem is that she gives them sonething to cling to, tells them that the universe has endorsed their idea. So when she tells a young man that this time he has found true love, he clings to it desperately. He clings to it no matter how hard the object of his affection pushes him away, to the point of destroying himself. She gives him an excuse to follow a terribly self-destructive path.

Marina meets an unusual man and unusual things begin to happen: she finds that she’s no longer faking it. She sees things. She knows things. And she doesn’t know how to deal with it. This is unlike anything in her experience.

“That Marina was now having visions that could be considered psychic and that those visions were not only unregulated and indecipherable but ruining her business as a psychic created a kind of cognitive dissonance within Marina that was impossible to reconcile.”

But she needs to come to grips with it quickly, because suddenly there is a lot at stake.

The Grift was an engaging read – it moved quickly and drew you into Marina’s story. She is thinks of herself as damaged, but she is really a survivor. She overcame a terrible childhood and made a life for herself. When her grift becomes her gift, you really hope that she can pull herself together. show less

Did you notice how the 'r' is slightly dropped in the title?

The definitions that precede the beginning of the novel explain this.

"grift - n. a group of methods used for obtaining money falsely through the use of swindles, frauds, etc."
"gift - n. a special ability or capacity"

Intriguing...and even more so after the prologue. While out on the boardwalk with her junkie mother an old fortune teller identifies a young girl - Marina - as having the 'gift'. Her mother continues to exploit this ideas as Marina is growing up. Fast forward to the present and we find Marina making a living as a psychic, but as a grifter. She is very adept at reading someone's body language and small clues they provide to give them 'psychic' readings.

Marina has to show more leave Florida quickly and she opens a new shop in California, with a valuable ruby ring from her last client on a chain around her neck. While working at a party as a fortune teller, she meets Madeline - a spoiled rich woman, Cooper a confused gay man in love with Max, an even more confused psychiatrist. These introductions lead to more new clients whose lives are inextricably intertwined with each other's and with Marina's. And the ruby ring seems to be a part of all of it. Through a seemingly inevitable chain of events, Marina predicts a murder, but then becomes the prime suspect. But - she's not faking any longer- her psychic ability is actually real now. She just can't see the murderer's face.

Just released last month, The Grift defies categorizing for me. It's a mystery, it has some 'otherworldly' aspects but is also a love story and just a really good all round read. It doesn't descend into unbelievability despite the psychic theme but rather presents a 'what if' alternative.

Every character was distinctly drawn and came to life for me. Some are flawed, others lovable, some despicable but all come across as real. I found myself reading 'just one more chapter' to find out what would happen next. It's always a treat to find a 'new' ( for me) author like Debra Ginsberg. show less

The victim of childhood abuse and neglect, Marina Marks developed the skills that many children in such circumstances acquire – the ability to read people with a survivor’s instantaneous accuracy. Following a scheme set in motion by her drug addicted mother and an eerie encounter with an old woman who claims she truly has the second sight, the little girl becomes a psychic, a career she holds on to as an adult as the novel opens. After starting a new life in California, however, events unfold to completely change her idea of who and what she is.

As the cover art suggests, the word grift is only one letter away from gift, and this is the fine line Marina walks throughout the novel. From the beginning she doesn’t see herself as a con show more artist, merely a “counselor” of sorts who reads people instead of fortunes. She carries a sense of mild disdain for her clients, a feeling which makes it easier to relieve them of their money. Her self-definition fails, however, once she starts actually seeing ghosts and foretelling the future with frightening accuracy. In the end, Marina must redefine her notions of reality and of herself, a transformation that is not without consequences.

The Grift is a well-written story. The plot is original, the characters are engaging, and the author does an admirable job of handling a wide variety of viewpoints with accuracy and skill. The protagonist acts in ways we would expect of one who suddenly finds the world changed, seemingly overnight. It’s a touch that lends credibility to her character and interest for the reader. A good read for a rainy day. show less

Marina Marks has been using her sharp powers of observation and finely honed intuition to convince willing clients of her psychic abilities ever since she was a small child and her drug-addicted mother used her daughter’s “gift” to make a little extra money on the side. As an adult, Marina makes a pretty decent living telling her clients exactly what they need to hear, but when she sets up shop in Florida, she soon finds herself being run out of town by the competing local voodoo queens and other assorted wise-women. Desperate, she convinces one of her wealthier little old lady clients that her son is in danger, and finds herself $3000 richer and in unwilling possession of a ruby ring—a gift to the client from her son. Marina show more uses the money she has extracted to move her operation to a paradise for psychics and other New Age grifters…Southern California.

Once settled into San Diego, Marina begins to build up a new client base. There is Madeline, a rich man’s wife who hires Marina for a lavish party and then retains her to provide guidance as Madeline frantically tries to conceive an heir for her bitter husband; Cooper, an attractive gay man desperately in love with a psychiatrist who is in deep denial about his own sexual orientation; Cassie, a hairdresser intimately involved with Eddie, a married womanizer; and Eddie himself, who is obsessed with Marina because she shows not the slightest hint of surrender to his charms. Marina is, if not happy, at least content with the life she is building, perfectly willing to continue serving as a mirror for her clients’ hopes and fears and making a pretty decent living doing so.

But then Gideon comes along. Handsome, evasive about his history, and an old-fashioned romantic, he swiftly finds his way into Marina’s heart. She begins to neglect her clients, and their resentment towards her grows as their lives continue to spiral into chaos. But Marina doesn’t care, because she is finally finding happiness—until the day she finds out just who Gideon is and what he wants. Her love life is in shambles, and her professional life is quickly approaching the same state. And then, to add insult to injury, Marina—a professional psychic who doesn’t believe in psychics—suddenly starts seeing ghosts, glimpses of the future, and the insides of peoples’ minds.


Fast-paced and whimsical, “The Grift” is a delightful and clever tale about learning to live with oneself and one’s gifts and the importance of being who you are rather than who other people may want you to be. show less

Debra Ginsberg's tightly written suspense novel tells the story of a fraudulent psychic, her hopeful, yet needy clientele, and the collision of their lives in a disturbing turn of events that even she couldn't see coming. At the novel's opening, Marina Marks has been working with retired old ladies in Florida when threats from her more voodoo-inclined competition encourage her to relocate to New Age-friendly Southern California. There, she establishes lucrative relationships with customers including a trophy wife desperate to give her husband the baby he wants, a gay man in love with a closeted doctor, and an incurable ladies' man more interested in Marina herself than the future she predicts for him. The most interesting aspect of this show more novel for me by far was Ginsberg' laser-clear understanding of the phenomenon of cold reading and the psychology of those who seek out psychic advice. Marina is successful in her con because she doesn't just take from her clients, but understands what her clients genuinely need and gives that to them along with her vague insights. The detailed description of how she is able to appear so accurate in her readings is a valuable lesson for anyone who has ever been impressed by the seeming ability of a psychic to know our innermost secrets. Marina's well-controlled act is upended by the arrival of a complicated, attractive new client and disturbing dreams and visions that appear to tell the future she never actually believed she could see. Though I don't believe it's actually possible to predict the future, I was intrigued by how Ginsberg chose have Marina develop psychic abilities that, while accurate in their predictions, were too vague and open to misinterpretation to be of much use before the events themselves occurred. They were, however, very effective in building the suspense that kept me so caught up in the story I read most of the book in one day. show less