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    The Talk-Funny Girl: A Novel
    The Talk-Funny Girl: A Novel
    The Talk-Funny Girl: A Novel
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Talk-Funny Girl: A Novel

    Written by Roland Merullo

    Narrated by Em Eldridge

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateOct 24, 2017
    ISBN9781541486621
    The Talk-Funny Girl: A Novel
    Author

    Roland Merullo

    Roland Merullo is the bestselling author of more than twenty works of fiction and nonfiction, including Once Night Falls; The Delight of Being Ordinary; The Talk-Funny Girl, an Alex Award winner; Vatican Waltz, a Publishers Weekly Best Books of 2013 pick; Breakfast with Buddha, an international bestseller now in its twentieth printing; Lunch with Buddha, selected as one of the Best Books of 2013 by Kirkus Reviews; Revere Beach Boulevard, named one of the “Top 100 Essential Books of New England” by the Boston Globe; and Revere Beach Elegy, winner of the Massachusetts Book Award for nonfiction. Born in Boston and raised in Revere, Massachusetts, Roland attended Brown University, where he obtained a bachelor of arts in Russian studies and a master of arts in Russian language and literature. A former Peace Corps volunteer, he’s also made his living as a carpenter, college professor, and cabdriver. Roland, his wife, and their two lovely daughters live in the hills of western Massachusetts. For more information, visit www.rolandmerullo.com.

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    Reviews for The Talk-Funny Girl

    4.5/5

    51 ratings5 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I rarely give a book 5 stars, but this one richly deserves it. The story is stunning, heartbreaking, riveting, hard to read at times, but full of optimism and new beginnings at the end. Read this book! You will not be sorry.
    • 4/5
      The Talk-Funny part of this book made it a little difficult for me to get into it at the beginning, but once I became accustomed to the manner of speech it, I slid right into the story. And what made it even better was there was a twist to the story, I didn't even see coming that floored me.
    • 4/5
      Marjorie is teased in school because of the way she talks. But that is how her father talks, and if she speaks differently, she will be punished. The church her family attends stresses obedience in children, with severe punishments for even imagined disrepect. When she turns 17, her family sends her out to get a job, since neither parent works. The job Marjorie finds, assisting a man who is building a cathedral, is hard physical labor. She is good about it and learns some difficult truths about herself, her employer and especially, her parents.
    • 5/5
      A very moving and authentic account of a teenage girl's struggle to overcome parental abuse in back-woods New England. Her voice rings true and it's easy to understand and feel her fear, pain, and loneliness. Her parents' insistence on a special manner of speech further isolates her from her classmates and the community, where she might have been able to get some help. The picture of a horrible "church" community that encourages parents in abusing their children as a form of discipline and punishment is chilling, and reminds us of the witch-hunts that were also conducted under the guise of religion. A very compelling read, and kudos to the author for creating these carefully-drawn, realistic, sympathetic and quite complex characters. A great book for book group discussions also.
    • 5/5
      Amazing, beautiful, incredible novel. Read it, please?