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Julie Buntin

Biography

Julie Buntin

Julie Buntin is from northern Michigan. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, Cosmopolitan, O, The Oprah Magazine, Slate, Electric Literature and One Teen Story, among other publications. She teaches fiction at Marymount Manhattan College, and is the Director of Writing Programs at Catapult. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. MARLENA is her debut novel.

Julie Buntin

Books by Julie Buntin

by Julie Buntin - Fiction

Everything about 15-year-old Cat’s new town in rural Michigan is lonely and off-kilter until she meets her neighbor: the manic, beautiful, pill-popping Marlena. Cat is quickly drawn into Marlena’s orbit, and as she catalogues a litany of firsts --- first drink, first cigarette, first kiss, first pill --- Marlena’s habits harden and calcify. Within a year, Marlena is dead, drowned in six inches of icy water in the woods nearby. Now, decades later, Cat must try again to move on, even as the memory of Marlena calls her back.