When Friends or Siblings Grow Apart in Lit

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Among the poignant and dramatic story lines in literature is seeing friends or siblings who were close as children diverge in their life paths and feelings toward each other as they grow older. Sometimes things get better after that rupture, but in many cases they don’t.

Containing a strong example of divergence is John Grisham’s The Boys from Biloxi, which I finished this past week. In it, Keith Rudy and Hugh Malco are close friends and fellow baseball stars as Mississippi kids, but things take a different trajectory by the time they become adults. Keith follows his father in becoming a prominent attorney, while Hugh follows his father into mob-world territory. No surprise to say the two young men will eventually meet on different sides of the court system in this riveting novel.

As the above paragraph indicates, parental influence can be a big factor in determining the future turns children take. Look at siblings Maggie and Tom Tulliver in George Eliot’s masterful The Mill on the Floss. As was often the case in the 19th century, Tom is treated better by his parents (and society) as a male, which helps drive a wedge between him and his sister Maggie — a much nicer and smarter person. Not that the two were ever super-close in the first place, but things definitely got worse for many years until a shocking turn at book’s end.

In Toni Morrison’s absorbing early novel Sula, the protagonists Sula Peace and Nel Wright are close childhood friends. But a tragedy, different personalities (Nel is much more conventional), and a betrayal yank them apart as they grow older.

The conventional/less-conventional divide is also a factor in Kristin Hannah’s page-turning Firefly Lane, in which Tully Hart and Kate Mularkey are extraordinarily close pals in childhood and into adulthood. But the ambitious, driven Tully becomes a famous TV host who remains single while Kate marries and becomes a stay-at-home mother — so they obviously live much different lives. Plus there’s a betrayal here, too, as well as the tension of Kate wondering if her husband Johnny loves Tully more than her.

The siblings in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres, and Ken Kesey’s Sometimes a Great Notion? Too complicated to summarize the machinations and drama here, but all four of those novels are very compelling reads.

There are of course many marriages in literature that start off wonderfully before later disintegrating, but that’s a somewhat different theme that I blogged about in 2014.

Your thoughts about, and examples of, today’s 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 every Thursday for Baristanet.com, which has merged with Montclair Local. The latest piece — about the reappointment of my town’s poorly performing municipal clerk — is here.

76 thoughts on “When Friends or Siblings Grow Apart in Lit”

  1. Hi Dave,

    As my Missy-Moo told you last week, my obsession at the moment is Kingsolver’s “The Poisonwood Bible”. It’s my first Kingsolver and I’m blown away by how good it is. I don’t know if it strictly fits into this week’s topic, as the sisters seem to be relatively close, especially for how difficult their situation is. But the mum is implying that one of them doesn’t survive, which I reckon is about as distant as siblings can get.

    Spoiler – I may gush about this book for the next few weeks.

    Susan (I’m not being asked to leave a name. Missy had the same issue last week, but I assumed that was just because she’s a cat).

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    • Thank you, Susan! Very glad you’re still enjoying “The Poisonwood Bible”! Now that you’re reading Barbara Kingsolver, there are many other great novels of hers to try in the future if you return to that author: “Prodigal Summer,” “The Lacuna,” “Flight Behavior,” “Unsheltered,” etc. 🙂

      “Cats and Avatars” would be an excellent name for a rock band…

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      • Oh Dave, these sisters are breaking my heart. They’re now all in very different places, and any kind of reunion seems unlikely. As one of them has said, ‘… you can only go your own way according to what’s in your heart. And in my family, all our hearts seem to have whole different things inside.’

        At the end of the book is a chapter of “Demon Copperhead” which I’m very much looking forward to reading to see if “The Poisonwood Bible” was just a fluke for Barbara Kingsolver. Somehow, I think I’m going to love her other books as much as I’ve loved this one. I see you’ve mentioned her again in your blog this week. I had no idea she had written so much. What a treat I have to look forward to ❤

        Susan

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        • Thank you for the follow-up comment, Susan! While “The Poisonwood Bible” might have been Barbara Kingsolver’s best novel, it was definitely not a fluke; several of her other books are also wonderful or near-wonderful. The only novel of hers I haven’t gotten to yet is “Demon Copperhead,” which won the Pulitzer that “The Poisonwood Bible” deserved (it was a finalist).

          Yes, the lives of the sisters you mention, and their relationships with each other, make for very poignant/compelling reading.

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  2. What an interesting reflection. Having lost a brother at a young-ish age, the idea of siblings parting ways seems tragic to me, though I know it’s a real occurrence. As a reader, I imagine that impacts my impression of the characters. Great examples, Dave, and an interesting dynamic to add tension to a plot. 🙂

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    • Thank you, Diana! Sorry about your brother. 😦 That is a sad, huge thing to experience, and I can see how it would affect anyone’s reading (as well as their writing). And, yes, the relationships between siblings or friends that end/go bad in some way can make for a compelling — albeit depressing — story line.

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  3. Hi Dave. I am late to arrive this week, so I’ve had the benefit of enjoying your take on this interesting subject and the excellent comments that followed. I don’t have anything to add to this collective list, but it’s a fascinating topic. Lots of stories go the other way, old friends, family coming back together. I hope you’re having a good week.

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    • Thank you, Dan, for the kind words! As always, I have been enjoying the comments, too. And yes, the flip side — and more heartening side — to this is when people on the outs with each other patch things up. Hope you’re having a good week as well!

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  4. You got me on this one, Dave. All I could think about was that it’s a story about my sister and myself.
    That’s not a book. It’s reality.
    However, once past that I remembered that in “Grand Avenue” by JoyFielding, all 5 women were the best of friends, 5 musketeers, if you will.
    In the end grown apart, and sometimes worse.

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    • Thank you, Resa! Sorry about the situation with your sister. 😦 I hear you about real-life examples; my relationships with my sister and with my brother have definitely had some…drama.

      “Grand Avenue” is a great mention! It hadn’t occurred to me for my post because it was a more-than-two-friends situation, but what a dramatic scenario Joy Fielding came up with for that excellent novel.

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  5. Charity shop, last Saturday, 8 DVD’s for £1,
    including the complete Brideshead Revisited. Charles and Sebastian, student friendship/love no match for Sebastian’s alcoholism.
    Wuthering Heights and the Reed sisters, lazy Georgiana and harsh Eliza, who becomes an RC mother superior. – Charlotte Bronte’s opinion of this choice clear.

    The Lear sisters, of course, and please may I have Susan, no longer a friend of Narnia ?

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    • Thank you, Esther! That’s an impressive DVD haul for the money! And great mentions of several relationships — including the fraught one between Jane Eyre’s very different cousins Eliza and Georgiana!

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    • Thank you, Jennifer! Yes, the sibling thing in “East of Eden” and the friend thing in “Firefly Lane” are both VERY memorable.

      I’ve only read “The Mill on the Floss” once myself, but I imagine a reread of that excellent novel would be really rewarding.

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  7. Kazuo Ishiguro’s two novels which deal with friendships growing apart are Never Let Me Go and When We Were Orphans. Also Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner. In all three of these young people grow apart due to circumstances beyond their control. My two or three cents worth 🙂

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  8. The book that immediately came to mind (or should I say hurtled to mind) was October Light by John Gardner. An elderly brother and sister on opposite sides of the political spectrum are forced to live together by circumstances. The brother blasts his sister’s color TV with a shotgun, and their already strained relationship goes downhill from there. A wild ride!

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  9. I’m thinking Whatever Happened To Baby Jane, a horrorific tale re siblings. Then there’s Wurthering Heights since Heathcliff and Catherine are siblings of sorts *ahem*. Great theme Dave. Wanted to add I enjoyed your last theme, and loved the pic of Misty. Speaking of estrangements and cats, just had our cat, Wiley Jones fixed, and he’s currently not speaking to me. Susi

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  10. your subject of this week, Dave, reminds of some very touching novels such as you have mentioned or A THOUSAND ACRES. Also The Choosen, by Chaim Potok, which I mentioned lately, showed me that 2 jewish teenagers of different households managed to overcome their problems and remain friends.

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  11. Hi Dave, initially I couldn’t think of any relationships like you are describing but a bit of thought yielded Pip’s damaged relationship with Biddy in Great Expectations and Ayla’s damaged relationships with Ranec and Jondular in The Mammoth Hunters by Jean Auel. There is also the blighted friendship between Howard and Peter Keeting in The Fountainhead

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  12. The first literary friend/brother rift that I encountered was in the film of ‘Ben-Hur’ (I have yet to read Lew Wallace’s original novel). The Hebrew Judah Ben-Hur, his sister, and their mother have been close friends with the family of the Roman soldier Messala. Judah and Messala, in fact, were close as brothers. However, when Messala wants Judah to become an informant on leading Jewish citizens that might be inclined to band together to form an insurrection, Judah refuses. He will not betray his own people. In a radical and rapid about face, Messala condemns Judah to life and certain death as a galley slave, framing him for loosening a tile from a balcony that hit a Roman commander on horseback (his sister Tirza accidentally loosened the tile). He sends the sister and mother to a leper colony. When Judah asks Messala why he would do something so cold-hearted, Messala says that when Roman citizens and high ranking soldiers and aristocrats see that Messala is even willing to sacrifice his best friend and his best friend’s family, they will see that he is a ruthless leader. Needless to say, this doesn’t turn out quite as Melassa hoped. Judah survives and keeps crossing paths with a Jewish carpenter/teacher/healer named Jesus, etc. Dave, did you ever read the novel? For some reason I thought you might have. I’m assuming that the basic plot was retained for the big epic film with Chuck Heston from 1959, in which case, I’m restating the obvious. Be that as it may, this seems to be one of the most radical and irreversible rifts between friends that weren’t as close as we thought they were.

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  13. “Gora ” an epic Novel by Rabindranath Tagore , slightly resembles your topic Dave.
    The world is divided into racism , white supremacists, division between poor, refugees and wealth which includes total ignorance of plights and needs of people.
    The name Gora is short for Gourmohan, and he had earned this name because of his extremely fair complexion. Gora is an orthodox Hindu and strictly follows all customs and beliefs of the Hindus.
    Gora, the protagonist, is a very staunch follower of Hinduism and has very high regards for his religion. He is not only a strong advocate of his religion but practices Hinduism through strict austerity and conviction.

    At the end and after Gora finds out that he is not a Hindu at all, since he discovers he was actually an Irish foundling (left on the doorsdtep by his mother),
    he realises that he need no longer be afraid of “becoming a fallen person and losing my caste status”.

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  14. Such an interesting topic! I don’t have any other examples of books with sibling themes – except for many of the Astrid Lindgren books, such as Brothers Lionheart, where the love between two brothers is portrayed in an excellent way. But I think that the theme with siblings is a theme that touches all of us, both those who have and those who haven’t got siblings. There are many myths concerning what it is to be a sibling and to have that companion, that has grown up with you – though siblings often view their childhood quite different from one another. Growing apart and growing together is quite common, and can truly change back and forth as life moves on, but one thing that is special about siblings, is that they have been there and seen you grow up, and they are unique in that they have known the same parents from a similar position. Having read your post, I feel eager to get reading some good novels about siblings 😀

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    • Thank you, Thérèse! Well said! Very true that fictional or real-life relationships between siblings have a LOT of history (and often a LOT of complexity) permeating them — more so than in most other kinds of relationships. I’ve certainly experienced that with my two siblings.

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