Maybe you know a Marjorie Moore; maybe you are one. She’s dauntless, desperate, and a little bit delusional. In her debut novel, Manhattan-based writer Christie Grotheim delves deep into the American heartland to explore a flawed search for fulfillment. Her lovable protagonist’s insatiable desires and misguided antics shed light on our own search for escapes—and search for self—and perhaps that is why we cheer her on wholeheartedly.

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Protagonist Marjorie Moore, trying to overcompensate for her difficult childhood, always wants more—and as a result, often feels she ends up with less. Forever searching elsewhere, she is consumed with wanting, or in her opinion, needing. Feeling trapped by her town and her family, she escapes through obsessive shopping, pill popping, and fantasizing about a possible affair with a friend from high school with whom she reconnects on Facebook. Her growing credit card debt “forces” her to sell prescription drugs—which she secures at her receptionist job at the local hospital—to her dysfunctional friends. As her web of lies at home and work unravels, Margie wrestles with whether she is capable of becoming present in her own life.

Astute and provocative, Grotheim’s prose captures many of life’s dichotomies—masks versus authenticity, recklessness versus stability, and searching versus finding—in this moving debut novel.

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