#William March

[ragamuffingunnar]

"Then he put his arm under my head, lifting me up, and kissed me softly on the cheek, repeating phrases which I could not understand. I saw, then, that he too, had been crying for a long time."

— William March; The Unknown Soldier. Company K

[myhikari21things]

Read of The Bad Seed by William March (1954) (205pgs)

[teenageread]

Review: The Bad Seed

Synopsis:

There’s something special about eight-year-old Rhoda Penmark. With her carefully plaited hair and her sweet cotton dresses, she’s the very picture of old-fashioned innocence. But when their neighborhood suffers a series of terrible accidents, her mother begins to wonder: Why do bad things seem to happen when little Rhoda is around?

Originally published in 1954, William March’s final novel was an instant bestseller and National Book Award finalist before it was adapted for the stage and made into a 1956 film. The Bad Seed is an indelible portrait of an evil that wears an innocent face, one which still resonates in popular culture today.

Plot:

Christine knew her daughter was special. Rhoda, daughter of Christine and Kenneth Penmark, was unlike her parents in many ways. She was neat, obedient, and the perfect picture of what a 1950s daughter should look like. She was polite, and affectionate when needed, and she could make her tears come when needed. Rhoda had mastered the art of acting, gaining adults' affection and always getting what she wanted. Always. With Kenneth away most of the time, it was just Christen and Rhoda, living in their apartment complex run by Monica, who placed herself as Christine’s best friend. When Rhoda did not win the penmanship competition, Christine told her daughter that it was okay, that it was the judge's call to make, and sometimes we do not get everything we wanted. Days later, police found the penmanship winner, Claude, dead in the water with his penmanship medal missing. Days later, Christine found the medal in a box of Rhoda’s treasured items and could not make the connection. Could Rhoda, peculiarly yes, but still her daughter, be a killer? But Rhonda is only eight, and children cannot be killers, can they? Taking on the role of if she is writing a story, Christine is digging into her own past, and the story’s about other children killers, to see if she can figure out if Rhoda really is a psychopath, and if she is how many people have she killed, and if she is not, is Christine losing her mind, accusing her own daughter of being a killer. 

Thoughts:

William March took the world by storm when he released his novel about an eight-year-old killer in 1954. By today’s standards, it is not a shocker, as stories about psychopathy and child killers have been in all forms of media and are available for most of the public. Yet, in 1954 it was still a novelty concept that March took advantage of when he wrote this story. Titled because of the gene passed into Rhoda to make her a psychopath, March takes the narrative of the mother, Christine, who is described as a weak woman trying to do what is best for Rhoda and missing her husband terribly. Christine spends her time trying to figure out why her child is acting strangely, half believing her child could be a killer and trying to convince herself that Rhoda was sane and that these mishaps were just accidents. March takes the book into two subplot lines of Christine figuring out her past by working on her “book”, and the current activities of Rhonda, having them tie up neatly in the end leaving you with an ending that is appropriate but not one you wanted. March really makes you feel for Christine as our mother figure is going into complete crises about her daughter and is someone to just generally pity for what she must deal with. Leroy, as a minor character, was extremely integrating, besides his awful rape-y thoughts about Monica and Christine, but his perverted dialogue with Rhoda always made you on edge, waiting to see which one snapped first. Rhoda, March’s most developed character, was interesting to see the act because March makes it obvious that Rhoda is not normal, and even when they have announced Claude's death you know Rhoda had something to do with it. This girl with her two braids and sweet smile had a bloodthirsty side that March wrote about from the beginning. The plot and writing itself, do not have the shocking twist seen like in today’s writing, but slower and more thought out, thus having a mild pace despite its hard-packing storyline. Overall, as a book for the 50s it is good, with an interesting story arc, and fantastic characters, it is worth the read if you are in the mood for some child-killing action.

Read more reviews: Goodreads

Buy the book: Amazon

[illustratus]

The Assassination of Julius Caesar by William Holmes Sullivan

[grapery]

well the situation's this

[petermorwood]

[365filmsbyauroranocte]

Nothing Sacred (William A. Wellman, 1937)

[thelassoway]

Leap Dave Williams (2012)

Uptight lawyer Dave Williams turns into the real Leap Day William after an ice fishing trip gone awry.

[chalamet-chalamet]

“What do you see?" he demanded.

"I see us giving love to each other in a time of quiet between storms. It's what we were meant to do."

📸 by Jack Davison and Greg Fraiser

[writing-for-life]

Morpheus—J.H. Williams III

[myhikari21things]

Read of The Bad Seed by William March (1954) (205pgs)

[human837]

HAPPY FALSETTOS DAY!

[21stcenturyroyals]

What do you think about the King?

[rainingmbappe]

ITS IDES OF MARCH, EVERYONE ASSEMBLE AAAAHHHHHHHH

[dizzycycl0ne]

ooauuough marvin in march of the falsettos (1981) saying that he cooks for everyone in ‘a tight-knit family’ ex. “And I sing out as I cook / I want a tight-knit family / I hope you all enjoy linguine / Talk till you hear the dinner bell” in an ‘i’m the leader of the household i do all the work im holding this all together i should be appreciated’ kind of way

but then throughout the rest of the musical we have the other characters all proving that they are the ones cooking for him, they’re the ones cleaning up after him, they’re the ones doing everything for him (ex. trina in ‘this had better come to a stop’ and ‘please come to my house’)

and even marvin admits this !! he tells whizzer that he should be there with dinner made in ‘this had better come to a stop’ but only when he’s talking to whizzer. because when he’s talking to the audience he’s saying that it’s all him while fully acknowledging that it’s not when he’s talking to the others and i just

[phierecycled]

Some programme pages from the 1981 Playwright's Horizons and 1987 London production of March of the Falsettos!