Melody Marloe

About the Book

The story is about the dissolution of a family, and particularly one member: a male named Francis Braddock. The saga is narrated by voices throughout who have exerted influence on him or have had occasion to observe the development of his dilemma. The means of its telling is similar to Faulkner's As I lay Dying except that the voices are only female. There is a confusion, a misunderstanding, perhaps a mistake in the Braddock lineage (which had made a name and tradition for itself in the architectural profession), but nobody seems to want to acknowledge it or even give it credence until Aunt Claire (married to a scion) sniffs it out. Then, she loses her husband to this family dilemma, and dedicates her life to its exposition and hopefully its decision. Unfortunately, poor Francis, caught up in the preposterousness and uncanniness of it loses ground in his limited world (which is in fact the general world) and he becomes overwhelmed with our need for reasons and purposes for everything. He readily yields to the predicament and his own confusion as to who he is or needs to become because of it, rather than discovering and correcting what seems to be wrong with his family. At an early age, he notices that his family consists only of himself, his sister, his mother and one aunt. He remembers his father, but he can't recall any grandparents or cousins either. There had been good fortune as a result of the family's business, but in the midst of this comes a pointless act - the willful disappearance of Francis's grandmother after the death of her husband. She had, prior to this, confessed to Claire (her daughter-in-law) her understanding that this family has no longevity among the males. Francis's father diverted from the architectural tradition, and married a head strong woman who soon after spent her time feuding with and decrying the man because he let the family fortune slip away because his wayfaring mother had bequeathed most of it to her other son who had remained in architecture. She also carries on an indecisive and often unreasonable feud with Claire (her sister-in-law) for the duration of Francis's formative and post adolescent years Francis begins college with the problem sublimated, but a significant physical incident occurs which confuses and beguiles him and causes him to turn against any efforts to aid him both physically and socially. His sexual method becomes extreme and stultifying to his companions: he drinks and loses himself to some kind of apathy. He abandons routines yet continues to trudge. The infection spreads because his sister marries late and has a child. Claire is at her wit's end, betrayed, but there is nothing she can do. Francis loses job after job. He becomes settled into superfluousness. Fortuitously he meets the self proclaimed Melody Marloe, a sixteen year old opportunist with a past as chimerical as his own. He, who has made his own world for the worse rarified by suffocation and constriction becomes associated with she, who at any cost has specialized her world through augmentation and victimization. Melody has no parents, and is watched over by a guardian who had married her widower father before he was killed in an airplane. She makes matches for her warder which are all in self interest, we learn, and whether for her future, her lust or the development of her own illusions, she keeps her devoted guardian alert and cautions. At first, Francis is just goofy fun for her, but soon she gets a glimpse of his genealogical difficulty, his apathy, and his family's (Aunt Claire's) wealth. For one brief period he tries to transcend his dilemma, and even purchases a sports car in a shammy effort to convince himself that he has succeeded. Melody understands it all. She has made the acquaintance of his family, and suggests an agreement of conjugation between Francis and Barbara, her guardian. Claire is happy. Her nephew has found a family, and therefore will not need to make one.

About the Author

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