Marrying Malcolm Murgatroyd - Softcover

Farrell, Mame

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0374447446 ISBN 13: 9780374447441

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR), 1998

Synopsis

What's worse than an arranged marriage? A "fiance" like Malcolm

Twelve-year-old Hannah believes she's been promised in marriage to Malcolm Murgatroyd, the son of her parents' best friends, who happens to be the biggest geek in her class. She knows that she'd be laughed right out of school if her friends knew about her embarrassing family history with the Murgadork. but Hannah can't just turn her back on him -- after all, he's the only person who knows how to cheer up her younger brother, whose muscular dystrophy has confined him to a wheelchair. In this bittersweet first novel, the engaging, true-to-life Hannah struggles to the realization that kindness and happiness don't have to be mutually exclusive.

About this title

About the Author

Mame Farrell lives in Monroe, Connecticut. Her second novel, Bradley and the Billboard, was recently published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

From School Library Journal

Grade 4-6?Hannah, 12, has problems: her third-grade brother Ian's muscular dystrophy embarrasses her, and she must hide her friendship (since infancy) with sixth-grade classmate Malcolm Murgatroyd (also known as Murgadork), son of her parents' best friends. (In fact, their families have projected their marriage since their births). What's a popular girl to do? After Ian has a serious brush with death, she makes her choice and publicly acknowledges the importance of both boys in her life. Written in the first person, the book has some funny, touching moments. The central characters are well drawn, with Malcolm a determined free-thinker and Hannah a convincingly conflicted young woman. Her school clique is a frightening mass of shallow, judgmental adolescents with raging hormones. So far, it rings true. However, the book lacks detail to place it in time; the social texture suggests the 1950s, but the landscape lacks evidence to place it there or anywhere else. At book's conclusion, Hannah reads her autobiography aloud to her class: "My future plans include going to college, doing volunteer work for the Muscular Dystrophy Foundation, and someday, if I'm lucky, marrying someone like Malcolm Murgatroyd." Which, she says in the next sentence, "is exactly what I did." The sudden change in voice from present to past is jarring. Certainly, the experience of the child in this novel is valid, but her marriage expectations in combination with the time-warp effect imply that this is a work of historical, not contemporary, fiction. This is a first novel by a writer who shows promise.?Carolyn Noah, Central Mass. Regional Library System, Worcester, MA
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0374447446
• ISBN 13: 9780374447441
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 128