Bookreporter.com Beach Bag of Books -- The Late, Lamented Molly Marx by Sally Koslow

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Hardcover
ISBN: 9780345506207

The circumstances of Molly Marx’s death may be suspicious, but she hasn’t lost her joie de vivre. Newly arrived in the hereafter, aka the Duration, Molly, thirty-five years old, is delighted to discover that she can still keep tabs on those she left behind: Annabel, her beloved four-year-old daughter; Lucy, her combustible twin sister; Kitty, her piece-of-work mother-in-law; Brie, her beautiful and steadfast best friend; and, of course, her husband, Barry, a plastic surgeon with more than a professional interest in many of his female patients. As a bonus, Molly quickly realizes that the afterlife comes with a finely tuned bullshit detector.

As Molly looks on, her loved ones try to discern whether her death was an accident, suicide, or murder. She was last seen alive leaving for a bike ride through New York City’s Riverside Park; her body was found lying on the bank of the Hudson River. Did a stranger lure Molly to danger? Did she plan to meet someone she thought she could trust? Could she have ended her own life for mysterious reasons, or did she simply lose control of her bike? As the police question her circle of intimates, Molly relives the years and days that led up to her sudden end: her marriage, troubled yet tender; her charmed work life as a magazine decorating editor; and the irresistible colleague to whom she was drawn.

More than anything, Molly finds herself watching over Annabel–and realizing how motherhood helped to bring out her very best self. As the investigation into her death proceeds, Molly will relive her most precious moments–and take responsibility for the choices in her life.

Exploring the bonds of fidelity, family, and friendship, and narrated by a memorable and endearing character, THE LATE, LAMENTED MOLLY MARX is a hilarious, deeply moving, and thought-provoking novel that is part mystery, part love story, and all heart.

"Reading Sally Koslow's latest novel is like being at a cocktail party with the sharpest guest in the room. With her laser-like --- and very funny --- observations of human foibles, her wit and insight , Koslow has created a character with both heart and brains. You will love every minute you spend with her!"

- Emily Listfield, author of BEST INTENTIONS

"Heaven only knows how Sally Koslow pulled off this novel with such precision and wit, and a narrative that drives you to the very last sentence. A story of love, friendship and family told from both sides, THE LATE, LAMENTED MOLLY MARX is a treasure no matter how you look at it."

- Betsy Carter, author of SWIM TO ME

Sally Koslow is the author of the novel LITTLE PINK SLIPS. Her essays have been published in More, O: The Oprah Magazine, and The New York Observer, among other publications. She was the editor in chief of both McCall’s and Lifetime, was an editor at Mademoiselle and Woman’s Day, and has taught creative writing at the Writing Institute of Sarah Lawrence College. The mother of two sons, she lives in New York City with her husband.

Ever wonder who would attend your funeral? Newly deceased Molly Marx gets to see that and more as she tries to decipher her past mistakes in life and the mysterious circumstances surrounding her death. One minute, she was taking a bike ride on the west side of Manhattan; the next, she arrived here. “Here” is what is referred to as “The Duration,” and to Molly it “looks and feels like an upscale fitness resort…a sunny solarium. Leaded glass windows overlook a lush park webbed with cobblestone paths where people of all ages are walking briskly as if they have places to go.” As her newly appointed guide, Bob, informs her, this is where she’ll be until she “relocates.”

Until then, she possesses the power to look down on her loved ones and see how they are coping without her. Annabel, her sweet four-year-old daughter, is too young to fully grasp the scope of a mother’s loss. There’s Barry, Molly’s plastic surgeon husband, whose roving eye has always been a bone of contention. Her parents and twin sister Lucy are devastated but trying to go on for Annabel’s sake. And then there’s poor, dear Luke Delaney, a former lover whom she never really got over.

Since the details of Molly’s death are sketchy, no one is sure if it was an accident, a suicide, or possibly even murder. Detective Hiawatha Hicks (he gets a lot of grief over that name) tries to deduce exactly what happened on the bike path that rainy day. Was her husband having an affair and perhaps wanted to be rid of his wife? Could Luke have been enraged when Molly ended things between them, and could that rage make him do something horrible to her? What about her best friend Brie? Does she have something to hide? Could it have been a random stranger? Molly watches her family and friends with rapt eagerness trying to piece together her last few moments on Earth, but also reflects back on key incidents in her life that might have brought her to this point.

Author Sally Koslow has the difficult task of making a commercial novel about a woman’s mysterious death and afterlife not morbid and depressing. It’s not THE LOVELY BONES, but more in the vein of BRIDGET JONES’S DIARY --- if Bridget Jones had unexpectedly expired and was allowed to look down on family and friends afterwards, making wry comments. Inasmuch as we relate to and sympathize with Molly’s regrets about her life, we get to see the highs as well as the lows --- the loves, the birth of a daughter, the precious time spent with family and friends. There’s also a mystery at hand: How did Molly die? Who’s responsible, if anyone, or was it just a horrible accident?

Although the flitting between genres is somewhat jarring at first, once the story draws you in, readers will find themselves racing to the end, along with Detective Hicks, to find out exactly what happened to the late, lamented Molly Marx.

--- Reviewed by Bronwyn Miller

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What gave you the idea for THE LATE, LAMENTED MOLLY MARX?

ANSWER: As readers can deduce from the title, our heroine, Molly Marx, is dead. We meet Molly at her funeral, in the first sentence. I got the idea for the novel while attending the funeral for a neighbor whom I didn’t know well, and as eulogies unfolded, I wished I had; there were sides to her I’d never guessed. I was rather surprised --- as I thought the deceased, a distinctly private woman, might be --- by the outpouring of mourners at her service. Later, when people gathered at the widower’s home, I moved on to shock when mourners approach him about dating and his mother, whom I’d just met, complained about what a difficult person her deceased daughter-in-law had been. By that evening I was infected by a “you can’t make this stuff up” feeling and knew I wanted to write about a mystery cloaking a woman’s death, although I created a character less troubled than my neighbor. One of life’s recurring fantasies is to be a fly on the wall at your own funeral. Who doesn’t wonder about virtues we have that speakers would find worthy of extolling, who those speakers might be and in the case of many women at least, the clothes in which we’d be buried. (No pleated pants, please.).

Is the Molly character you?

ANSWER: Certainly, we share many flaws. Like Molly, email chain letters have expired on my watch, I can annoy my husband by prattling on, I’ve been known to gossip and forget birthdays and in thriller movies, sometimes can’t follow the story line. I’d like to think I’m a good friend, a good sister, a good mother, but unlike Molly I’ve never had a daughter, I don’t much like to bike, I do take care of my shoes and I don’t subscribe to cheesy celerity magazines. Also, as I’m writing this I am, thank God, very much alive.

The novel is told in a split narrative, with a 3rd-person back-story and a 1st-person present-tense story. Why did you choose that route?

ANSWER: My first novel, LITTLE PINK SLIPS, was told in a direct chronological sequence. To grow as a writer, I thought it would be interesting to explore another format, one which could give the character Molly more immediacy, in order for readers to be in her head as she reflects on her life and witnesses those left behind. But I also wanted to flash back to before Molly’s death, and tell that part of her story from a viewpoint where she, literally, has less perspective.

Publishers Weekly referred to the novel’s “heavy dose of hilarity?” Is the point of the book its humor?

ANSWER: I think you can look for comedy in almost any tough situation. I’m pleased that readers have found THE LATE, LAMENTED MOLLY MARX to be amusing. I admire writing where humor and tenderness collide. I think of the book as a reflection on complex relationships --- marriage, sisterhood, parenthood, friendship --- that’s built on the infrastructure of a mystery. I hope readers will notice Oscar Wilde’s quote: “The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.” To me, this is the heart of THE LATE, LAMENTED MOLLY MARX. Often events around us elude explanation. We can help analyze reality best if we activate our bullshit detectors. Humor jump-starts that process.

The character Molly experiences “life” after death in a location you refer to as “The Duration.” Do you believe in an after life?

ANSWER: I was raised in the Jewish tradition, with the concept that after death a person lives on through good deeds she’s exhibited and the providence they may leave behind. My spiritual focus has never been heaven or hell, yet I can’t say that I’m not philosophically curious about what comes next. I’d like to think that metaphorically, a place exists where a restless spirit lands, takes another form and may bring about something positive. Is there a Duration and will Elvis be singing? Is divine retribution part of the picture, like there is in the book? I’ll have to wait to find out.

What’s your writing process?

ANSWER: Writers who plot a complete book in advance awe me. My mind doesn’t work that way. I start with a sense of where I want to end and begin with characters, get to know them, and let them tell me what they will do next. As I write, my characters feel increasingly real. I try to see and hear them and record what’s going on, almost as if I were watching a movie. Writing fiction is fairly new for me. I was your garden-variety moody teenager who wrote poetry; a few lines of which I quote on p. 301 and during high school and college became interested in journalism, with Lois Lane as role model. I spent decades writing for and editing non-fiction for magazines and became editor-in-chief of McCall’s and of Lifetime. Only when I was no longer on top of a masthead did I flirt with fiction, I joined a writers’ workshop, for the deadlines, the feedback, and the camaraderie. I’m still in that group. Submitting my first drafts there is like taking a play to New Haven.

I’ve discovered that certain times of day --- the morning, especially --- feel most fertile and that if I go for a run, the wires in my brain wake up and connect. Whenever I can, I make a run or walk part of my process. I researched and reported on this phenomenon for a health magazine and learned that scientists have found that repetitive exercise puts you almost in a dream state which fosters creativity. Biking and swimming are good for this, too, while strategic games like golf or tennis are not. For me this is fortunate. I have zero eye-hand coordination. I’m lucky I can type.

Do you have a favorite character in the book?

ANSWER: Lucy! I’m fascinated by what the anthropologist Margaret Mead has observed, that within families the bond between sisters is the most competitive, but when sisters are grown, it becomes the strongest. Molly and Lucy were inspired by a photograph an acquaintance showed me of her fraternal twins taken when the girls were 13. One appeared to be about 20, with the shape of Beyonce Knowles, and the other, a childish, skinny 11, exactly how I looked at that age. The relationship between sisters has always interested me.

Do you have a favorite scene in the book?

ANSWER: No question: when Molly gives birth to Annabel. Ask any mother --- no matter how much it hurts, she’ll tell you the day her children were born was the most fulfilling of her life.

Why did you make Molly’s occupation a decorating stylist?

ANSWER: Decorating magazines are my porn. At home I’ve never used a professional decorator --- for better or worse, I’m hooked on trying to fashion my own environment. I painted one entire apartment pale pink, to the horror of friends whose taste runs from beige to taupe. Perhaps they found it cloying, but I adored the way people looked reflected in a pink glow. When I worked on magazines I always had the highest for regard for lifestyle editors. They go on location, bring in the orchids and sisal rugs, rearrange the mantel and furniture and hours later, a home shines. There’s both gritty physical work and imagination required. I’ve never had that job myself, and wanted to give Molly this opportunity.

Are you writing another novel?

ANSWER: Yes, about the complexities of friendship, especially when your own self-interest trumps and conflicts with what’s best for a friend. Do you know the German word schadenfreude: pleasure taken from someone else’s misfortunate? It’s a dark emotion related to envy, and will flavor the book along with reflections about changing attitudes and values relating to money, status and priorities in our culture.

What are you reading these days? Who’s influenced you?

ANSWER: My favorite writer and greatest influence is Edith Wharton, but lately I’ve been reading contemporary fiction. In the past year I’ve discovered some wonderful writers whose novels I have thoroughly enjoyed: Charlotte Mendelsohn’s WHEN WE WERE BAD and DAUGHTERS OF JERUSALEM along with THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY by Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Burrows and THE SPACE BETWEEN US by Thrity Umrigar. I also loved Lucette Lagnado’s memoir, THE MAN IN THE WHITE SHARKSKIN SUIT. I think it’s time for me to read or reread something that isn’t contemporary. Hello again, Edith. I’ve taken the newest translation of ANNA KARENINA off my shelf and hope to get to it soon. Reading is my daily reward, like dark chocolate. I’ve noticed that my cooking improves when I use high quality ingredients and hope the same theory applies with books feeding my brain.

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Chapter One

Kill Me Now

When I imagined my funeral, this wasn’t what I had in mind. First of all, I hoped I would be old, a stately ninetysomething who’d earned the right to be called elegant; a woman with an intimate circle of loved ones fanned out in front of her, their tender sorrow connecting them like lace.

I definitely hoped to be in a far more beautiful place --- a stone chapel by the sea, perhaps, with pounding purple-gray waves drowning out mourners’ sobs. For no apparent reason --- I’m not even Scottish --- there would be wailing bagpipes, men in Campbell tartan, and charmingly reserved grandchildren, or even great-grandchildren, coaxed into reciting their own sweet poetry. I don’t know where the children’s red curls come from, since my hair is chemically enhanced blond and straight as a ruler. The bereaved --- incredibly, those weepy old souls are my own kids --- dab away tears with linen handkerchiefs, though on every other occasion they have used only tissues. The service takes place shortly before sunset in air fragrant with lilacs. Spring. At least where I grew up, in the Chicago suburbs, that’s what lilacs signify: the end of a long winter, life beginning anew.

I didn’t expect to be here, in a cavernous, dimly lit Manhattan synagogue. I didn’t expect to be surrounded by at least four hundred people, a good three hundred of whom I don’t recall talking to even once. Most of all, I didn’t expect to be young. Well, maybe some people don’t think thirty-five is young, but I do. It’s far too young to die, because while my story isn’t quite at the beginning, it isn’t at the end, either. Except that it is.

She’s dead, all those bodies in the pews must be thinking. Depressing. On that last count, they would be wrong. In fact, if the congregation knew my whole story --- and I hope they will, eventually, because I need people on my side, not on his, and especially not on hers --- it would be clear that I, Molly Divine Marx, have not lost my joie de vivre. On that point, I speak the truth.

“She would be here if she could,” he says. “She would be here if she could.” That’s Rabbi Strauss Sherman, pontificating over to my right. I wish he were the twinkly junior rabbi whose adult ed classes I kept telling myself I should take, not that I am --- was --- keen on the music of Jews in Uganda. But the speaker is the senior rabbi, the one who says everything twice, like an echo, though it stopped short of being profound the first time. I suppose I should get off on the fact that he’s the big-shot rabbi invited to homes of people who contribute gigabucks and, thus, rate succulent, white-meat honors on holidays. I wonder if Barry, my husband, made sure Rabbi S.S. spoke today just to stick it to me, since whenever he gave a sermon I’d squirm and mutter, “Kill me now.” I’d hate to think God decided on payback.

I realize I am not being kind about either Rabbi S.S. or the heartsick husband. Barry’s sizable schnozz is chapped from crying, and I caught more than a few people noticing as he discreetly swiped his nose on the sleeve of his black suit, soft worsted in a fine cut. Armani? they’re wondering. Not a chance. It is a close facsimile purchased at an outlet center near Milan, but if they took it for Armani, Barry would be glad. That was the general idea.

Perhaps some women in the pews wonder what I’m dressed in. The casket is closed --- talk about a bad hair day --- but I am being buried in a red dress. Okay, it’s more of a burgundy, but one thing that’s putting a smile on my face (only metaphorically, unfortunately) is that for all eternity I will get to wear this dress, which cost way too much, even 40 percent off at Barneys, where I rarely shop because it’s generally a rip-off. I’m sure if it had been up to my mother-in-law, the enchanting Kitty Katz, today I would have been stuffed into a button-down shirt and pleated pants that made me look like a sumo wrestler, but my sister, Lucy, intervened. Lucy and I have had our moments, but she knew how psyched I was to be wearing the dress to a Valentine’s party this coming Saturday. Go, Luce.

Wherever it is I’m off to, I hope they notice the shoes --- black satin, terrifyingly high slingbacks, with excellent toe cleavage. I only wore them once, those shoes, and that night Barry and I barely left the dance floor. When we shimmied and whirled, it was almost like sex: we became the couple people thought we were. The Dr. and Mrs. Marx I, at least, wanted us to be. I loved watching Barry move his runner’s body in that subtle but provocative way of his, and how he nestled his hand on the small of my back, then cupped my butt for the whole world to see. It’s a pity we couldn’t have merengued through life as if it were one endless Fred and Ginger movie.

Will there be dancing where I’m headed? I digress. I do that. Drove Barry nuts.

“Our dear Molly Marx, she would be here if she could,” Rabbi S.S. is saying. That makes three. “The circumstances of her death may be mysterious, but it is not for us to judge. It is not for us to judge.”

As soon as someone tells you not to judge, you do. Everyone in this chilly sanctuary is judging --- both Barry and me. I can hear it all, what’s in people’s heads as well as on their lips.

“Foul play.”

“Killed herself.”

“Jealous boyfriend.”

“She had a boyfriend? That mouse?”

“You have it all wrong. He had a girlfriend.”

“If it’s suicide, then why the ginormous funeral?”

I hear a smug tone. “For Jews, with a suicide it’s the burial place that gets questioned, not the funeral.”

“He won’t be single for six months.”

“Especially with the little girl.”

Yes, there is a child. Annabel Divine Marx, almost four, black velvet dress, patent leather Mary Janes. My Annie-belle is clutching Alfred the bunny, and the look on her face could make Hitler weep. Right now, I will not allow myself the luxury of thinking about my baby, who wonders where her mommy is and when this nasty dream will end. If I could be alive for five more minutes, they would be spent memorizing Annabel’s heartbeat and synchronizing it with my own, tracing the bones in her birdlike shoulders, stroking the creamy softness of her skin. I will always be Annabel’s mother. My mantra.

People can call me anything, but in the mommy department, there was never a moment when I wasn’t trying to do the right thing. I attempted to live for my child --- not through her, for her. I tried. I really did. I never would have abandoned Annabel. Nothing ever mattered more to me than my unconditional love for her, a long, unbroken line that continues even now. The best compliment I ever got was from Barry when he said simply, a few weeks after Annabel was born, “Molly, you get motherhood. You really do.”

“Our dear Molly, our lovely Molly,” the rabbi is saying. “She was so many things. To our grieving Barry --- a trustee of this very institution --- she was a beloved wife of almost seven years, a woman with her whole life ahead of her. To Annabel, she was Mommy, tender, devoted. To her parents, Claire and Daniel Divine, she was a cherished daughter, and to Lucy Divine, she was an adored twin sister, absolutely adored. To her colleagues, she was a . . .” Rabbi S.S. refers to his notes. “A decorating editor at a magazine.”

Wrong. I stopped being a decorating editor when Annabel was born. Lately, I was a freelance stylist --- the person who brings in the tall white orchids and fluffs a room so when it’s photographed for a magazine it shames most of the readers, since there’s no way their homes are ever going to look like that. Then they blink and smugly wonder if people actually live in that picture with not one family snapshot in a teddy bear frame sold at a Hallmark store. Who actually buys white couches and scratchy sisal rugs? How do you clean them? They turn the page.

I wasn’t brokering peace in the Middle East, or even teaching nursery school like my twin sister. But I loved my work, and in my sliver of a world, I was a giant. What I could do with a mantel was almost art. People must have hated inviting me to their homes, for fear that I’d rearrange their bookshelves and suggest that they sell half of their tchotchkes on eBay.

“Molly was a loyal friend, an accomplished biker, a graduate of Northwestern University with a major in art history.”

Is the rabbi going to recite my entire résumé? Disclose that I was rejected from Brown and never made it off the Wesleyan wait-list? Share that I took a junior semester in Florence and skipped every class --- did I even buy textbooks? --- while Emilio fra Diavolo taught me Italian of the nonverbal variety? Mention the two jobs from which I was fired and the fourteen-month gap between them? Point out that Barry and I were seeing a marriage counselor?

There’s Dr. Stafford right there. Goodness, she looks quite moved. I always imagined that when Barry and I were carrying on at her sessions she was thinking, How did I get stuck with these two completely shallow, nonintrospective, loser brats? Oh, I have three private school tuitions to pay. That’s why. But I see tears and I can tell they are real.

The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, and when he takes away big-time, I have discovered he compensates you with a finely tuned bullshit detector. It is a minor consolation, but I think I am going to like it.

“And now we will hear from Molly’s husband,” the rabbi says. “Barry. Dr. Barry Marx.”

Barry kisses Annabel on the head and untangles his hand from hers. She takes a look at Kitty --- who forbids the word grandma --- and considers whether to move closer to her. “Kitty smells funny,” she used to say. “It’s just her cigarettes, honey,” I would respond. “Don’t smoke when you grow up or you’ll smell funny, too.” I hope Annabel remembers that. If she becomes a nose-ringed, tattooed fourteen-year- old hanging out in the East Village with a cigarette dangling from her lips . . . there won’t be a damn thing I can do about it.

Kitty is wearing a severe black suit --- either Gucci or Valentino. She’d be horrified to know I can’t tell or appreciate the difference, though I admit it looks stunningly appropriate. The tailoring shows off her yoga-buffed sixty-four-year-old body, which, in clothes, we both privately acknowledge looks a good bit better than mine. Today she seems to have hijacked the first floor of Tiffany’s. With Kitty, more is more. She is wearing diamond studs the size of knuckles, a sapphire-and-emerald brooch dribbling over her breast like Niagara Falls with a bracelet to match, and a black lizard handbag that, no doubt, contains her smokes.

I hope Annabel eventually inherits some of Kitty’s baubles. I’m not saying Kitty’s glad I’m dead, but at least she has a good excuse now for not willing me any jewelry.

When Barry arrives at the front of the synagogue and bounds up the six steps, he clears his throat and takes some notes from his jacket. He tears them in half with a flourish. I knew he would do that! We saw the same stunt at my aunt Julie’s funeral last year. Does he think my family won’t notice he stole it? Ah, but he doesn’t really care about them, does he? And what makes it worse is that except for the Divines, everyone in the congregation is buying into his heart-wrenching grief. From every corner, I hear sniffles and snorts and see tiny tributaries of tears.

“I fell in love with Molly when I was a senior at college,” he begins.

I was a sophomore. He was the pre-med guy who finally had room in his schedule for a class on twentieth-century art and took a seat next to me in a darkened auditorium. Barry wanted to become a collector, he said, and I remember thinking the remark pretentious; no one I knew aspired to own anything more than an Alex Katz dog litho or a student’s work snagged at a silent auction on open-studio night. But Barry dreamed on a grand scale. When five years later I found out that he’d become a plastic surgery resident at Mount Sinai in Manhattan, I wasn’t surprised. If ever a doctor were born to woo women into rhinoplasty, it was Barry Marx, who managed to incorporate his own nose into his well-delivered pitch.

At least forty of his patients must be here today. All those weepers with the delicate, symmetrical noses aren’t my mommy-buddies, magazine pals, book club friends, or cycling partners. Do Barry’s patients have a phone tree, like the one at Annabel’s school in case of inclement weather? Did someone start making calls at 5:30 a.m.? “Sorry to wake you, but I thought you’d want to know Barry Marx is single. The funeral’s at ten. Pass it on.”

“There are four things you should know about my wife, Molly,” Barry begins. “First, she had the most musical laugh in the whole world. Many of you know that laugh. I married her for that laugh. I cannot believe I will never hear it again.”

So far, okay. To be fair, there was a lot of laughing, and no one thinks Barry married me for my breasts, which most wives of plastic surgeons would have had enlarged from nectarines to melons.

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