Bury Me Deep

First Line: Thrill parties every night over on Hussel Street.

It's 1931 in Phoenix, Arizona. Young wife, Marion Seeley, has been left in town while her doctor husband travels to work in Mexico. She has a job as a clerk in a clinic, and she soon falls under the spell of a nurse who also works there. Louise and her roommate Ginny love to party, and slowly but surely they seduce Marion from her strict upbringing and from the promises she made to her husband. It's been months since Marion has heard from her spouse, and handsome Joe Lanigan is right there smiling at her every night when she attends her friends' parties.

Marion's life is about to change forever.

Abbott loosely based her novel on the case of Winnie Ruth Judd, with which I'm show more familiar. I was surprised by how quickly I left my prior knowledge behind and how totally caught up I became by this story. The author did an excellent job of making me feel as though I were in Depression-era Phoenix without overdoing on either the details or the slang. Even though I knew how the original case had gone, the end of the book was still hard-hitting and unexpected.

I wasn't quite ready for Marion's story to end, and that's one of the many reasons why I'm looking forward to reading Abbott's other books. show less

The corridor, filled with girls - she saw suddenly how it appeared to him. How it was like the grandest candy counter in the finest department store in town. A candy counter packed fat with brassy blond nougats and licorice-whip brunettes and auburn twists of taffy with round cinnamon-button cheeks, honey-faced brickle with sweet dimpled legs powder sweet as marshmallow, jellied lips of every color, with mouths red and glossy and waiting for him. He need only drop his pennies on the counter and take his pick. And pick and pick. Candy Man.

I've got to hand it to Megan Abbott, she really can say something when she gets going. I rarely seek a 'different level' when reading fiction - which is what annoyed me so much about my college lit show more classes - but with this book I couldn't help but think about women of that time and their limited stature in society. I could almost hear my women's-lit professor in my head. I didn't like the book as much as Queenpin but I personally think it's always hard to top your first exposure to a really good thing. Abbott's always good for when you feel like a little dirty Noir. show less

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

BURY ME DEEP is a story of naivete, of corruption, and of drug addiction.
Marion Seeley is left on her own in Phoenix by her husband who goes off to Mexico to simultaneously overcome his own drug addiction and to make his fortune. Marion, who really knows very little of the seamier side of life, goes to work at a medical clinic and is befriended by Louise and her roommate Ginny. Ginny is dying from TB and her treatments are expensive. To pay for them (and to live the "high life") Louise entertains powerful men with wild parties. She introduces show more Marion to Joe Lanigan, local politician, and as corrupt as they come. From that point on Marion's future spirals downwards.

BURY ME DEEP is an appalling story told so authentically that in the end you just can't believe what happened to Marion.The tension continues to build right into the final pages. show less

In 1930s Phoenix, Marion has been left alone by her doctor-husband, who has gone to work in Mexico as a sort of rehab for his heroin addiction. Naive Marion gets mixed up with a couple of party girls (who are also lesbian lovers), and through them, meets a married businessman who seduces her. As she learns more about her love, Marion starts shedding her naivete, and when violence ensues, she finds out just what she's willing to do.

It took me a while to get used to Abbot's writing style; she likes to string together long sentences linked by multiple ands. Once I got into the rhythm of the writing, the novel rocked right along. As it was based on true events, the story did feel a little thin in places, since it had to be stretched to fit show more the actual circumstances. I didn't agree with all of Marion's decisions, but I admired her growth as a character. This novel does underscore all of the ridiculous restrictions women had to live under during that time. show less

Bury Me Deep by Megan Abbott is a dark noir story set in Phoenix during the 1930’s. Based on a real life murder case that became a scandalous tabloid sensation during the 1930’s, the story tells how vulnerable Marion Seeley is left in Phoenix by her husband while he takes a job in Mexico and works on kicking his drug habit. She meets and falls in with two well known party girls, and falls head over heels for a world class heel, Joe Lanigan. The crazy love affair, the wild parties, the drunken nights reach their pinnacle in a flurry of jealousy, rage and bullets.

This tough, edgy story reads like a script for a 1930’s melodrama. I am a huge fan of Megan Abbot and this book, with it’s powerful prose brings this era to life. At show more first the story seems to be about a waif-like, neglected wife who is innocent of the degradation that life can bring but as the story draws to it’s conclusion, we can see that Marion has an inner core of steel.

The details of the real case of Winnie Ruth Jones are included in the back of the book and it is interesting to see how the author used this case to shape her story. Bury Me Deep had been on my shelves for quite some time, but this book, for me, was well worth the wait. I found it to be an excellent read about one woman’s life sinking into a gruesome yet riveting nightmare. show less

Apparently this is not one of Megan Abbott's better books, but it was the cheapest of them in the Kindle Store when I bought it. It was still one of those books that made me wish Goodreads allowed 3.5 star ratings… I don't even care about any other half-star levels, I just want 3.5! This is to say I liked it better than "just" liking it, but did I REALLY like it? Eh, well…

The problem with this book is that the first two-thirds or so are pretty slow. It is not that fun reading about Marion Seeley drinking with her new friends or getting seduced by an asshole serial womaniser. By the end of the book I was glued, getting fed up when my train got to the station where I had to get off and go to work for eight hours – but all of that show more compelling reading was just in the very last part of the book! And it's not even a very long book! It just seems a bit wasteful.

This, however, is something that established Megan Abbott fans have complained about in their reviews of this book, so I'm determined I should try another. If it's like the last third of this book, I'll love it. show less

Absorbing crime story (based on a true event in 1930's LA) with definite film noir potential but I wanted it to be finished. The supporting characters lapsed into stereotype but the story kept me reading in a nightmarish swoon.