From the Firefly Lane series on Netflix.

Nine years ago, I wrote a post about friends in literature. Here’s an expanded and revised version of that piece that includes several novels I’ve read since 2014.

Perhaps we remember the great romances more, but fiction’s great friendships also provide us with many pleasurable reading experiences. Those friendships — which are often more enduring than romances — can teach us, touch us, and remind us of our own longtime pals. And if some of literature’s buddies have difficulties or even a falling out, the silver lining for readers is plenty of dramatic tension.

I was reminded of all that when I read Kristin Hannah’s superb Firefly Lane last week (as in late July 2023). The 2008 novel stars Kate and Tully, who meet as unhappy teens in the 1970s and forge a fierce friendship that lasts decades despite the very different paths their lives take. Kate opts to become a stay-at-home mom in a happy marriage, while the hyper-ambitious Tully remains single as she becomes a nationally known TV host. Their relationship is loving, complicated, and marked by occasional mutual jealousy before some huge bumps in the road happen.

Toni Morrison’s 1973 novel Sula, which I also read post-2014, focuses on friends Nel and Sula — the former fairly conventional, the latter extremely unconventional. They’re pals during childhood and adolescence, but a shared secret of a tragedy and a later betrayal eventually pull them apart. One appeal of the book is that while Nel is the “good” person and Sula the “bad” person, things are actually more nuanced than that.

Fredrik Backman’s Sweden-set 2012 novel A Man Called Ove — another post-2014 read for me — features an unlikely friendship between the grumpy, tries-to-keep-to-himself white widower Ove and Parvaneh, his younger, warm, outgoing female neighbor of Iranian descent.

I like friendships of all types in literature, but some of my favorites are the ones that cross the lines of race, ethnicity, gender, and/or class — as is the case with A Man Called Ove. Those different-background relationships can sometimes be tricky in real life, so it’s nice when they succeed in fiction.

One obvious multicultural pairing is Mark Twain’s Huck and Jim — a white boy and a slavery-escaping Black man who gradually become close. Heck, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn could have been called The Friendship of Huckleberry Finn — and we’re not talking about Huck’s interactions with the annoying Tom Sawyer.

There are also the unshakable comrades Chingachgook and Natty Bumppo in James Fenimore Cooper’s five “Leatherstocking” novels. The final Last of the Mohicans scene between the Native-American chief and the white hunter is a very touching depiction of friendship.

Or how about Uncle Tom and young Eva in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin? Two admirable people who become interracial and intergenerational friends before circumstances turn tragic for each.

Another great example of friendship across age and class lines — this time with both characters white — is that of the working-class Mary and the older, more-moneyed Elizabeth in Tracy Chevalier’s historical novel Remarkable Creatures. Fossil hunting brings them together.

Mixed-gender friends? They include Jim and Antonia in Willa Cather’s My Antonia, and of course Harry Potter and Hermione Granger in J.K. Rowling’s mega-popular series.

Other memorable friendships in literature? “Kindred spirits” Anne and Diana in L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables; Jane Eyre and the sickly, warmhearted Helen Burns (when both are kids) in Charlotte Bronte’s classic novel; Dmitri and angst-ridden murderer Raskolnikov in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s masterpiece Crime and Punishment; hobbits Frodo and Sam in J.R.R. Tolkien’s iconic Lord of the Rings trilogy; and the prison pairing of Edmond Dantes and Abbe Farina in Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo — with the latter character doubling as a mentor, as can be the case with some friendships.

In novels of more recent vintage, Terry McMillan’s Waiting to Exhale features four friends (Savannah, Bernadine, Robin, and Gloria); John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany depicts a fascinating friendship between John and the very original Owen; Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior includes the fun, satisfying friendship between Dellarobia and Dovey; and Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride chronicles the many-year relationship between Roz, Charis, and Tony — all three of whom share an enemy.

I haven’t even gotten into friendships between humans and animals in novels such as Jack London’s The Call of the Wild and White Fang, Albert Payson Terhune’s poignant His Dog, William H. Armstrong’s also-poignant Sounder, Elsa Morante’s History, and Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series.

Your thoughts on this topic? Memorable friendships in literature you’d like to mention?

My literary-trivia book is described and can be purchased here: Fascinating Facts About Famous Fiction Authors and the Greatest Novels of All Time.

In addition to this weekly blog, I write the 2003-started/award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column for Baristanet.com every Thursday. The latest piece — about an embarrassing municipal typo and more — is here.

Sometimes readers just want to escape with an adventure novel.

The book might also contain literary flourishes and/or social commentary and/or other bonuses, but a page-turning plot is key. Plus of course protagonists to root for and villains to root against. Are the heroes facing danger voluntarily or involuntarily? What are the chances of survival? Is there some kind of quest involved? Etc.

Last week I read Louis L’Amour for the first time — specifically his late-career novel Last of the Breed. A riveting book that relates the saga of Joseph “Joe Mack” Makatozi, a U.S. Air Force pilot of Native-American descent whose plane is forced down in the Soviet Union during the 1980s. He escapes prison and embarks on an incredible journey across the bitterly cold Siberian wilderness under hot pursuit.

Jack London is known for his adventure novels set in Canada’s frigid Yukon — including his gripping canine classics The Call of the Wild and White Fang. But also taking readers for quite an adventure ride is London’s sea thriller The Sea-Wolf.

Very exciting as well is Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island.

Much of Herman Melville’s work is too deep to fit solely in the adventure category, but some of his novels — such as Typee — are more adventure-focused than literary/philosophical.

Alexandre Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo? One of the most exciting sagas in fiction, with an amazing escape and a huge revenge element.

Among the other memorable adventure novels I’ve read are H. Rider Haggard’s She, James Hilton’s Lost Horizon, Kristin Hannah’s The Great Alone, Kate Quinn’s The Huntress, Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, Richard Matheson’s Hunted Past Reason, Alistair MacLean’s Where Eagles Dare, Patrick O’Brian’s Master and Commander, Zane Grey’s Boulder Dam, Edgar Allan Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and several very famous titles from Jules Verne.

Obviously, novels can cross categories. For instance, Verne’s work is mostly considered sci-fi, and J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are fantasy fiction, but all also offer breathless adventure.

Your thoughts on adventure novels — including those you’ve read?

Earlier this week, the great podcaster/blogger Rebecca Budd posted another of her wonderful audio interviews — this time with me. 🙂 We discussed blogging, other kinds of writing, the “memoir” that will star my charismatic cat Misty, and more. Rebecca’s questions stimulated a very nice conversation. 🙂

My literary-trivia book is described and can be purchased here: Fascinating Facts About Famous Fiction Authors and the Greatest Novels of All Time.

In addition to this weekly blog, I write the 2003-started/award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column for Baristanet.com every Thursday. The latest piece — about a welcome measure to ban gas-powered leaf blowers and a NOT-welcome other decision — is here.

It can be easier to read (and write) a novel that continually concentrates on one or a small number of characters without leaving them for a while to rotate through other people.

Think Jane Eyre and Crime and Punishment, to name two books. The unbroken focus is on Jane and Raskolnikov, even as there are important supporting players in the mix.

Then there are novels that shift the focus to different people — whether every chapter or every few chapters. These books can be a bit more challenging, and even frustrating at times. We get accustomed to a character and then — boom — they disappear for a while. A certain rhythm is broken.

Yet this approach can also be satisfying as we get to know another character, and another character, and another… We see things from different perspectives, get all kinds of variety, etc. Then, in many cases, the characters — who might be family members, friends, or strangers — end up interacting with each other as the threads of the story come together. A thing of beauty when handled skillfully, whether the result is happy, tragic, or somewhere in between.

I happened to experience a rotating-character approach twice in a row last week with Kent Haruf’s Plainsong and Joy Fielding’s Cul-de-Sac.

Haruf’s exquisite novel tells the story of several residents in/near a small Colorado town — a pregnant teen, two teachers, the two young sons of one of the teachers, two elderly farmer brothers, a lonely old woman in ill health, a sadistic teen boy and his nasty parents, etc. We move from character(s) to character(s) as the chapters go on, gradually seeing the connections between many of them and the parallels between some of them as the multiple plots advance. Haruf’s spare, subtle writing is off-the-charts good.

Fielding’s Cul-de-Sac focuses on five families of different configurations who live on the same…cul-de-sac. As they gradually get to know each other, we see that a number of these neighbors have some major issues — one’s a prominent oncologist who sickeningly beats his dentist wife, another’s an infuriatingly meddlesome mother-in-law, etc. Plus some of these Floridians own guns in the weapon-saturated “Sunshine State.” We know from the start that someone’s going to be shot dead; the question is who will be the murderer and who will be the victim. There were certainly several people with enough anger and/or reason to kill in this very suspenseful novel.

In books that rotate characters, there often isn’t any one person who’s clearly more prominent than another; instead, there are roughly equal “co-stars.” But of course there can at times be “firsts among equals.” In Fielding’s novel, that would be Maggie McKay, a woman separated from her husband who tries to do the right thing and help others, sometimes at risk to herself. She also has the biggest arc in terms of maturing and changing her behavior.

Among the many other novels that very effectively switch from character to character are William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer, Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride, Liane Moriarty’s Nine Perfect Strangers, and George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones, to name just five.

Your thoughts about, and examples of, this topic?

My literary-trivia book is described and can be purchased here: Fascinating Facts About Famous Fiction Authors and the Greatest Novels of All Time.

In addition to this weekly blog, I write the 2003-started/award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column for Baristanet.com every Thursday. The latest piece — about my town’s firefighters voting “no confidence” in their chief — is here.

Credit: Freepik

I like bwat — books with a twist. And short stories with unexpected endings. The element of surprise is a great thing, plus it’s fun to think back to the start and middle of the novel or briefer tale to see what might have telegraphed the twist.

Some VERY famous short stories with shockingly not-foreseen conclusions? Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” (first published in The New Yorker just over 75 years ago), Guy de Maupassant’s “The Necklace,” Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour,” Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek,” and of course various O. Henry tales — including “The Gift of the Magi” and “The Last Leaf.”

Many mystery novels obviously also have unpredictable endings, as the authors use misdirection and red herrings to try to make you think someone other than the actual culprit did the murder(s). Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, anyone?

And then there are novels in other genres, as well as more general fiction, that fit this category. One master at the surprise ending is John Grisham, as I experienced again this month with his novel The Reckoning. A thought-dead-for-three-years World War II hero comes home and shoots his town’s minister. Why? What was the minister guilty of, if anything? I didn’t see the conclusion coming — a conclusion that had a lot to do with race relations at that 1940s time and place (Mississippi).

Grisham’s The Racketeer also threw me for a VERY cleverly engineered loop.

Moving to other novelists, (Ms.) Lionel Shriver’s Big Brother had a near-the-end-of-the-book twist that few readers would have predicted after many chapters of a sister trying to help her obese sibling lose weight. Liane Moriarty’s Apples Never Fall, about a missing woman, gives us a brilliantly unexpected finish I’m glad I didn’t make a bet on. I would have lost.

Thoughts about, and examples of, this topic?

My literary-trivia book is described and can be purchased here: Fascinating Facts About Famous Fiction Authors and the Greatest Novels of All Time.

In addition to this weekly blog, I write the 2003-started/award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column for Baristanet.com every Thursday. The latest piece — about awful U.S. Supreme Court decisions and how they contrast with my town — is here.

Parts of some novels make you cry. It could be tears of sorrow when a character (human or animal) dies or gets severely injured or there’s an unrequited-love situation, tears of happiness when there’s a long-delayed reunion or a character gets long-delayed justice or appreciation, etc.

If the author handles such scenes right, reader weeping is often a good thing. Our emotions have been engaged — to the max. One of the reasons why we love literature.

I thought about this last week while blubbering through the final chapters of Kristin Hannah’s superb 2018 novel The Great Alone, about a family that moves to a remote section of Alaska in the 1970s as the father tries to deal with trauma from being a prisoner of war in Vietnam — only to continue traumatizing his wife and teen daughter with physical and mental abuse. The whole book is emotionally intense, but the wrap-ups of two major story lines in the last few dozen pages are even more so.

The death of a major, kind-as-could-be supporting character in Anne of Green Gables? Devastating for Anne and others in L.M. Montgomery’s 1908 classic, and for readers. Montgomery later said she regretted having that death happen, but, as in many other novels, a demise does have importance for the plot and for the subsequent lives of the survivors.

Also emotionally intense is George Eliot’s outstanding 1876 novel Daniel Deronda, in which the title character goes through some major things, we see a drowning and a near-drowning, and there’s an agonizing case of unrequited love. More tears in this novel than in the four other Eliot novels I’ve read — and that’s saying something, because the author can definitely evoke VERY strong feelings.

The choice in William Styron’s Sophie’s Choice? That would bring any reader to tears (and fury). Not to mention the aftermath of that choice. Of course, the atrocities that marked so much of World War II mean heartbreak in various novels — including Erich Maria Remarque’s A Time to Love and a Time to Die, about a new couple who have only a short time to experience happiness.

A novel of course doesn’t have to be exceptionally literary to cause a reader to cry. John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, about the romance of two teens with major health issues? Nicholas Sparks’ A Walk to Remember, featuring a terminally ill teen? Get the tissue boxes ready.

Thoughts about, and examples of, this topic?

My literary-trivia book is described and can be purchased here: Fascinating Facts About Famous Fiction Authors and the Greatest Novels of All Time.

In addition to this weekly blog, I write the 2003-started/award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column for Baristanet.com every Thursday. The latest piece — about Juneteenth, July 4th, and more — is here.