The Bad Seed
William March’s The Bad Seed has inspired scores of writers since its publication in 1954. Novelists, playwrights, and screenwriters have reworked this story again and again. Set in a small American town in the 1950s, The Bad Seed is the fictional tale of an eight-year-old girl incapable of empathy or remorse and the emotional struggle of her mother as she comes to terms with her daughter’s psychopathy. The air of veracity with which this story is told leaves the reader with a feeling of sickening horror. The novel is both believable and unbelievable. Like many other readers, I googled, “Is The Bad Seed based on a true story?” So, why all the fuss? Why does The Bad Seed still rattle its readers decades after it was released? I encourage you to read this classic and find out.
The novel begins with the Fern Grammar School picnic, held every year on the first Saturday of June. It is on this day that Mrs. Christine Penmark begins a journey from which there can be no return. Although the school picnic is the inciting event, the bulk of this story takes place in the apartment complex where Christine and her daughter, Rhoda, live. The private courtyard and close-quartered tenants give the reader the same sense of intimacy that Hitchcock created in his film The Rear Window. Within this claustrophobic environment, Christine is forced to grapple with secrets from her past and her evolving realization that all is not right with Rhoda.
March was a master of characterization. He devised a cast of small town archetypes who value good lineage, polite behaviour, modern psychology, and rational explanations. The Bad Seed was published before the 1959 murders that Truman Capote described in his true crime novel, In Cold Blood. Nevertheless, March portrayed a society already fascinated by true crime and psychoanalysis. The character of Reginald, who tutors Christine in various criminal case studies, embodies this captivation, as does the larger-than-life character of Monica Breedlove, who has a pseudo-Freudian theory for everyone’s behaviour. With regard to young Rhoda, whom Monica describes as “such an innocent child,” the irony is thick.
As the plot (present and past) unfolds, the reader is lured toward an ever-increasing horror — a horror that contrasts Rhoda’s actions with her mother’s inaction. William March died the same year The Bad Seed was published and therefore never saw the movie version or long-term success of his final work. Despite the controversial nature of the book’s ending and consequent change in the 1956 movie The Bad Seed, I believe the novel’s conclusion was written perfectly. Chilling and memorable, the final words cut like knives through a Norman Rockwell painting.
Seventy years ago, William March wrote a shocking story about an eight-year-old serial killer. Is this book still significant today? Yes. In Chapter Two, Christine overhears two men say, “…we live in an age of anxiety and violence.” Does that statement ever lose its relevance? Sadly, no. Anxiety, violence, and grief, exhibited so rawly in this novel, are part of the human experience. Moreover, March’s writing is insightful and well crafted. Of particular note is the juxtaposition of certain characters: Christine Penmark and Hortense Daigle; Rhoda Penmark and Leroy Jessup; and, of course, Rhoda and her mother. I am haunted by scenes from this book and never again wish to hear the expression, “You’re silly.”
Are you looking for a psychological thriller that has earned its place in the ranks of classics? The Bad Seed will not disappoint.
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This book review of The Bad Seed by William March is based on the 1997 paperback edition (© 1954 William March) published by Ecco (an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, New York, NY, U.S.A.) and on the August 2018 unabridged audiobook edition (© 1954, 1982 W. E. Campbell LLC; ℗ 2018 Tantor) published by Tantor Audio and narrated by Elizabeth Wiley.