Literature often contains gender dynamics and racial dynamics, but there can also be class dynamics. Given how depressingly present class divisions are in real life, it’s good to see some fiction wrestle with that, too.

In Night Road (2011), another emotionally wrenching novel from Kristin Hannah that I read last week, among the major characters are best friends Mia (daughter of a doctor) and Lexi (daughter of an impoverished mother). The respective “stations” in life of those two and others are major drivers of Hannah’s plot.

Another friendship fraught with class differences is the one between well-to-do Amir and servant’s son Hassan in Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner (2003).

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun (2006) has a diverse cast that includes a “houseboy” (Ugwu), a professor (Odenigo), and two women (Olanna and Kainene) from an affluent family during the Nigerian Civil War.

Liane Moriarty’s 2014 novel Big Little Lies features a single mother (Jane) who is less affluent than most of the other parents at the Australian school her son attends.

Just before Night Road, I read John Grisham’s A Painted House (2001) — which features a struggling farm family in 1950s Arkansas. But even though the Chandlers barely get by, they’re in better financial shape than the “hill people” and Mexican migrant workers they hire to help pick the cotton crop. In turn, the Chandlers are worse off economically than a relative who’s a unionized auto-factory worker visiting from Detroit.

A book of course doesn’t have to be from the 21st century to have class consciousness. In the 20th century, Edith Wharton’s The Custom of the Country (1913) looks at new money vs. old money as it chronicles the saga of upward striver Undine Spragg. (The main characters are all affluent but there’s still a class divide.) And the guests in Vicki Baum’s Grand Hotel (1929) include a businessman (Preysing) and an underling (Kringelein) who the businessman initially doesn’t know is also staying at the hotel.

In the 19th century, Emile Zola’s Germinal (1885) focuses on mineworkers and mine owners heading for a showdown. The characters in George Eliot’s Silas Marner (1861) include a landowner secretly married to a working-class woman and the child of that union who ends up being raised by someone else. Also published in 1861 was one of Charles Dickens’ most class-conscious novels, Great Expectations, in which impoverished orphan Pip comes into some money.

Your thoughts about, and examples of, this theme?

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 Montclair Local. The latest piece — about one suggested voting-age change, two traffic lights, and more — is here.

My much-read copy of The Grapes of Wrath that I’ve had since high school. (Photo by me.)

This month is the 85th anniversary of The Grapes of Wrath, certainly in the conversation for The Great American Novel.

As many readers know, John Steinbeck’s April 1939-published classic is about the Joad family fleeing Dust Bowl/Great Depression-stricken rural Oklahoma for the “paradise” of California, which turns out to be more hellish than heavenly for the impoverished people moving there.

The Grapes of Wrath became a beloved bestseller, won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and inspired an also-beloved 1940 movie somewhat more upbeat than the mostly downbeat novel — which chronicles the experiences of ultra-memorable characters such as main protagonist Tom Joad, family matriarch Ma Joad, and lapsed preacher Jim Casy (who appropriately shares the same initials as Jesus Christ).

Not surprisingly, the wealthy elite of “The Golden State” hated the populist book and its class-conscious author for depicting them, and things, as they were. The novel has also, to this day, been periodically banned by right-wingers who don’t like its expose-injustice bent. Yes, The Grapes of Wrath still feels relevant in 2024 — 85 years after its publication and more than six decades after Steinbeck won the 1962 Nobel Prize for Literature.

The well-researched/very readable Grapes of Wrath (title suggested by Steinbeck’s first wife Carol Henning) is the author’s best novel, but he of course wrote various other excellent books that linger in the American consciousness. They include East of Eden, Steinbeck’s longest and most complex work; The Winter of Our Discontent, with its themes of materialism and moral decline; and the emotionally wrenching Of Mice and Men.

Steinbeck (1902-1968) was also skilled at seriocomic writing, as can be seen in Tortilla Flat as well as Cannery Row and its sequel Sweet Thursday. All three are quite enjoyable and compelling.

Among the author’s many other worthwhile works is the lesser-known The Moon Is Down, set in an unnamed Nazi-occupied country during World War II.

Any thoughts on The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck’s other writing, and the author himself?

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 Montclair Local. The latest piece — about a senior center finally coming to my town and the “political hit job” of two councilors on another councilor — is here.

Walter Mosley (top) and Percival Everett.

I’ve written before about the appeal of changing-up what we read, but I’m going to approach that topic from a somewhat different angle this time.

Often, I like to bounce around with my choices of novels. Read something heavy, then light. Read something long, then short. Read something general-interest, then genre. Read something old, then new. Read something by a female author, then a male author. Etc.

But on occasion I deliberately “schedule” two or more books in a row that have certain similarities. Perhaps by the same author. Perhaps in the same genre. Perhaps written and/or set in a similar time period. And so on. It can put one in a reading rhythm that’s nice to experience occasionally.

I did that this month when I read Percival Everett’s Assumption and then Walter Mosley’s Down the River unto the Sea. Both novels are by prolific African-American male authors born in the 1950s, both feature African-American protagonists who work/worked in law enforcement, both have mystery elements, both are exceptionally written, both were published between 2010 and 2020…

But Assumption (which I liked) and Down the River unto the Sea (which I loved) are of course not that similar in many respects. Some examples:

— Ogden Walker of Everett’s novel is a deputy sheriff in a small New Mexico town, while Joe King Oliver of Mosley’s novel is a private investigator in Brooklyn who was a decorated New York City police officer until getting framed by enemies within the force.

— Walker is a loner; the brilliant Oliver has a family (a teen daughter and former wife).

— Assumption is marked by a certain relaxed, understated quality (despite several murders occurring) while Down the River unto the Sea possesses a more frenetic urban vibe that had me eagerly turning the pages.

— The Mosley book’s conclusion is very satisfying but not shocking, while the Everett novel’s conclusion takes one of the most surprising twists I’ve ever encountered in literature. A twist I didn’t like, but it certainly got my attention and left me scrambling to think if there had been noticeable clues presaging what would happen.

So, yes, novels that seem somewhat similar are frequently quite different. Meaning readers often get a lot of variety even when they think they’re taking a hiatus from that.

Your thoughts on this topic?

Note: Mosley is best known for his acclaimed Easy Rawlins mysteries, while among Everett’s other novels are 2001’s Erasure (which inspired the 2023 movie American Fiction) and 2024’s James (which tells Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn saga from the perspective of escaped slave Jim rather than Huck.

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 Montclair Local. The latest piece — containing endorsements of Township Council candidates and my take on an amended lawsuit by Black firefighters credibly charging racism — is here.

Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. (Photos by Adam Bettcher and Andy Lyons/Getty Images.)

Female athletes are very much in the news these days with the NCAA basketball tournament. The University of Iowa (featuring superstar Caitlin Clark) is facing the University of South Carolina (featuring acclaimed center Kamilla Cardoso) in this afternoon’s championship game. Also in the Final Four or Elite Eight were the University of Connecticut’s Paige Bueckers, Louisiana State University’s Angel Reese, and other notables.

You know where this is going: I’m about to write a post about athletic women in fiction, mentioning various characters from novels I’ve read. 🙂

With basketball on my mind, I first remembered Patty Berglund of Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom. The novel mostly depicts her as a post-school adult, but she was a great student basketball player.

We also have golfer Jordan Baker of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. A character inspired by the famous real-life golfer Edith Cummings.

Liane Moriarty’s Apples Never Fall co-stars excellent tennis player (and tennis instructor) Joy Delaney, whose disappearance is the novel’s main story line.

Vivi Ann Grey of Kristin Hannah’s True Colors is a masterful equestrian who does rodeo work, too.

The very athletic prehistoric protagonist Ayla in Jean M. Auel’s The Clan of the Cave Bear and its five sequels also ably rides a horse (as well as a lion!), double-slings rocks, etc.

The 14th-century character Lady Claire d’Eltham of Michael Crichton’s Timeline impressively runs and climbs trees.

Katniss Everdeen of Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games trilogy is highly skilled at archery, which comes in handy given the dangers she faces.

In J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, the co-ed sport of Quidditch includes talented female players such as Ginny Weasley, Cho Chang, Katie Bell, and Angelina Johnson.

Athletic characters, whether female or male, obviously can make for interesting reading in literature. The personalities, the camaraderie, the hard work to become as physically and mentally strong as possible, the risk of injury, the thrill of competition, the suspense of who might win or lose, the potential for cheating and other shenanigans, etc. In the case of women, athleticism is thankfully more welcomed in our current era than it was many years, decades, and centuries ago.

Thoughts on this topic, and any other examples of athletic characters 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 every Thursday for Montclair Local. The latest piece — about an accusation against another township manager, and more — is here.