Rhoda is the only child of Christine Penmark and her husband Kenneth, who goes away on business. This is especially true for the students at Fern Grammar School, her new school in a small town named Benedict. However, most children keep their distance from her, sensing there is something not quite right about her. She reads books, does her homework, and practices her piano scales, all without being asked by her parents. To most adults, she's every parent's dream: obedient, well-groomed, and compliant. Outwardly, she is charming, polite and intelligent beyond her years. In 1954, the novel was adapted into a successful and long-running Broadway play by Maxwell Anderson and into an Academy Award-nominated film directed by Mervyn LeRoy in 1956.Įight-year-old Rhoda Penmark appears to be what every little girl brought up in a loving home should be. Its enormous critical and commercial success was largely realized after March's death only one month after publication. Nominated for the 1955 National Book Award for Fiction, The Bad Seed tells the story of a mother's realization that her young daughter is a murderer.
March often presents characters who, through no fault of their own, are victims of chance, and writes that freedom can only be obtained by being true to one's nature and humanity.The Bad Seed is a 1954 novel by American writer William March, the last of his major works published before his death.
His novels intertwine his own personal torment with the conflicts spawned by unresolved class, family, sexual, and racial matters. The author of six novels and four short-story collections, March was a critical success and heralded as "the unrecognized genius of our time", without attaining popular appeal until after his death. William March (born William Edward Campbell) was an American author and a highly decorated US Marine. March often presents characters who, through no fault of their own, are victims of chance, and writes that freedom can only be obtained by being true to one's nature and humanity.
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