This creepy 1954 classic tale of the evil Rhoda Penmark must have been quite a shocker in its day, and IMHO still is today. I was hardly one-third of the way into the story, and I already wanted to ring the little monster's neck and run and hide from the repulsive handyman! Not the ending I hoped for, but it definitely added to the creep-factor of the book. (hope to track down the movie)Update: August 2,2014OMGOSH! I do not know how I missed this excellent horror flick, and I must admit I thought it much creepier than the book, but best of all is the shockingly different (and better) ending. What is so cool too is at the conclusion of the film, viewer's are asked not to divulge its outcome.....which I won't do here. If you have only read the book, be sure to see the movie too!

Rhoda is a very believable serial killer, even if she is only eight years old. March gives her a naive sort of scheme-y-ness--she hasn't yet matured as killers go. The novel is dated in the most marvelous ways, reflecting mid-century theories of mental illness and sociopathy. It even has a character who was psychoanalyzed by Freud himself. I loved the conversations. I loved the journey of Rhoda's mother Christine, from slight unease to absolute certainty that her daughter is a murderer. Read it.

This was a nice surprise to discover. I heard about William March from a reader of Under False Flags, who told me about March's quote about war in his WWI novel Company K:"If the common soldiers of each army could just get together by a river bank and talk things over calmly, no war could possibly last as long as a week."If only it were true. That reader is also an expert in crime noir, and he reminded me about this novel, which takes a far more damning and sad view of people. Another early March quote starts to get to the heart of The Bad Seed, and the way March really saw us:"I have never ceased to wonder at the thing we call human nature, with its times of beauty and its times of filthiness, or at the level of calm stupidity that lies in between the two."March was one of those deeply flawed types he reveals in this story. He had a troubling childhood by all accounts and worked it out in his psychological fiction. His novels didn't sell well until this one, which made his name just as he lay on his death bed. He had been known in New York as the writer's writer, underrated and unnoticed for too long. I imagine a young writer like Patricia Highsmith was surely paying attention at the time. March clearly put everything into this tale, mining all those depths of human nature he knew all too well. In the story, attractive but ordinary and well-meaning Christine Penmark gradually sees her worst fears about her perfect yet strange daughter confirmed, and before long those fears only double and grow. What must a mother do when her own child might be a serial killer? What must that mother do once she dares to look deeper and discovers about herself? The consequences are chilling and steaming with bloody truths about the human condition. This is more than a psychological thriller but can just as well be read for entertainment. March keeps the story moving, all while exploring his characters' deepest needs and fears, revealing them all even as his characters do their best to conceal who they truly are. March's craft is a wonder. He often presents Christine fearing what's wrong with her daughter while in social situations, putting on a brave face even as she's aching and eventually imploding in her thoughtsnot an easy thing to pull off without diverting the reader. He chose and drew his cast of characters expertly, to bring out the worst. Setting plays its part. Just as Christine begins to sense her worst fears, worrying just where to turn, the rain comes and "the gutters were overflowing, and water ran down to the courtyard with a quarrelsome sound so close to speech that you felt, if you listened more attentively, you could surely know its meaning."All the elements serve the story, which is only about creepy little Rhoda Penmark on the surface. It's really about who we are deep down, where we come from, the horrors we may be wired for. Sometimes, what we do to avoid the worst will create the only thing worse. March understood that.

It seemed to her suddenly that violence was an inescapable factor of the heart, perhaps the most important factor of all - an ineradicable thing that lay, like a bad seed, behind kindness, behind compassion, behind the embrace of love itself.  Sometimes it lay deeply hidden, sometimes it lay close to the surface, but always it was there, ready to appear, under the right conditions, in all its irrational dreadfulness. How many of you I wonder remember or have seen the 1956 movie classic based on the novel starring Nancy Kelly, Patty McCormack and William Hopper.  I was still a child when I first saw it and it made a lasting impression,  I was terrified and it was not because of some demented clown or blood thirsty vampire, no I was petrified of a seemingly sweet and beautiful, golden haired child who was about the same age I was.  And I remember very well trying to hide or cover up this fear as my parents were reluctant to let me watch it in the first place.  If I was ever going to be allowed to see this kind of thing again it was paramount that I remain unaffected.  It was only many years later that I learned that my apparent cool demeanor left my parents more than a little disconcerted. So here we have a case where the memories of this movie eventually led me to the book.  I was not disappointed.  A true thriller from yesteryear, The Bad Seed is the story of a child serial killer.  Her name is Rhoda Penmark and as the story opens, it would seem that nobody save Rhoda is aware of her evil side.  What they see is a sweet and precocious girl who seems almost to good to be true. But then terrible things begin to happen and it is odd that Rhoda always happens to be right there.  Her mother,  Christine begins to think about earlier disturbing events surrounding Rhoda  and starts to question things.  Meanwhile distressing reports come in from the prestigious school that Rhoda attends.  And even more alarming discoveries are made, hidden among Rhodas things. Imagine, if you will for just a moment,  that  slowly, over time, you discovered incontrovertible proof that your child was in fact a cold blooded killer. Positively chilling, The Bad Seed is an intelligent, spine tingling thriller that withstands well the test of time.    Guaranteed to raise your hackles!But the little girl was not to be diverted from her game.  She did a little pirouette, curtseyed, and said What will you give me Father?  What will you give me if I give you a basket of kisses?

I am glad this was a book club read or I would have never experienced this book. It was thrilling and interesting and creepy. It was somewhat predictable and I wasn't biting my nails but I wasn't reading this in 1954. If I had read this back then I would be shocked and running to my neighbors and shoving the book at them and demanding them to read it. The ending is soooo good!