Marcia Butler’s debut novel, Pickle’s Progress, is a fierce, mordant New York story about the twisted path to love.
Over the course of five weeks, identical twin brothers, one wife, a dog, and a bereaved young woman collide with each other to comical and sometimes horrifying effect. Everything is questioned and tested as they jockey for position and try to maintain the status quo. Love is the poison, the antidote, the devil and, ultimately, the hero.
Marcia Butler has had a number of creative careers: professional musician, interior designer, documentary filmmaker, and author. As an oboist, the New York Times hailed her as a “first rate artist.” Acclaimed interior designs include projects in New York City, Boston, and Miami. After many decades in New York City, Marcia now makes her home in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
“The four main characters in Pickle’s Progress seem more alive than most of the people we know in real life.”–Richard Russo
“Pickle’s Progress is a Weird — But Secretly Sweet — Journey.”–npr
“Oh, what a pickle Pickle’s Progress puts us in – a duke’s mixture of villainy, deceit, betrayal, and, Lord help us, romantic love – all of it rendered in prose as trenchant as it is supple. Clearly, Ms. Butler is in thrall to these fascinatingly flawed characters, and by, oh, page 15 you will be, too. Let’s hope this is just the first of many more necessary novels to come.”–Lee K. Abbott, Author of All Things, All at Once
