Readers seeking perfection can…look up “perfection” in a dictionary. Because they’re not going to get it from even the best authors.

Yes, once in a while the best authors are going to produce, say, B+ or B- novels instead of A+ or A- ones. That’s okay, and human. Maybe the novelists had stress in their personal lives when writing the less-than-fantastic books — including being ill or ultra-busy. Maybe the authors tackled a different genre or overdid the experimenting and things didn’t work as well as they had hoped. Maybe the authors were writing sequels and became a bit bored with the same characters they had depicted before. Maybe all the conditions were right, but great authors are not machines churning out one masterpiece after another without exception.

I thought about all this last week while reading Kristin’s Hannah’s Fly Away, the sequel to her novel Firefly Lane — which I had read the previous week. I was prepared to be wowed again after the brilliance of Firefly Lane and three other Hannah efforts I had read this year: The Nightingale, Home Front, and The Great Alone.

But Fly Away turned out to be good not great. I found it overly dramatic and super-depressing for the most part, and also felt it jumped around in time too much and featured several major characters who did obviously dumb things despite being smart people. Partly explained by the grief they were feeling after the death of the co-protagonist in Firefly Lane, but it seemed their behavior was more about getting some plot gears going.

Still, the book did have some powerfully affecting moments, and we learned how the mother of one of the main characters — a mother who was not there for her young daughter in Firefly Lane — became so emotionally damaged.

Now that I’m done with Fly Away, I’m still a big fan of Hannah and will be reading more of her other novels in the future — because, again, no writer is perfect. (Well, maybe late Fleetwood Mac songwriter Christine McVie was perfect, given that her maiden name was…Perfect.)

Sometimes, lesser efforts can be attributed to novels being earlier-in-career works written before the authors’ writing fully matured. For instance, after rereading Fyodor Dostoevsky’s iconic Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov a few years ago, I tried his novel The Insulted and the Injured. Quite good, but nowhere near the same level.

The flip side of that can be late-career or even final novels written when the authors’ abilities are past their peak, their health might be failing, and/or they’re almost out of interesting ideas. I love or like virtually all of Willa Cather’s work — including My Antonia and Death Comes for the Archbishop — but her last book Sapphira and the Slavegirl was cringe. Jack Finney’s final novel — a sequel to the transcendent Time and Again — was the mediocre From Time to Time.

I give John Steinbeck props for the high quirkiness quotient in Burning Bright, but it was hard to read compared to his top-notch novels such as The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden.

Among the major or relative disappointments by other authors I like a lot? A Daughter of the Snows by Jack London, Cell by Stephen King, Chances Are… by Richard Russo, and The Siberian Dilemma by Martin Cruz Smith.

Your thoughts on, 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 a controversial township manager situation and more — is here.

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.

Pink Floyd, with Roger Waters third from left. (Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images.)

I’ve written about songs that include references to literature, but what about songs that almost have a literary feel even when not necessarily mentioning fictional works?

One person who accomplished this in at least some songs is of course Bob Dylan, who immediately comes to mind partly for the simple reason that he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016. I didn’t agree with the judges on that; Dylan has often been a great lyricist, but I think literary prizes are best left to novelists, short-story writers, and the like.

Among the other lyricists in rock, pop, rap, and folk music penning some songs with literary or near-literary heft are Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Smokey Robinson, Patti Smith, Taylor Swift, Gordon Lightfoot, Neil Young, John Lennon, Carole King, Leonard Cohen, Kendrick Lamar, Tupac Shakur, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs, Victor Jara, Roger Waters (also the bassist for Pink Floyd), Neil Peart (also the drummer for Rush), Bono (also the lead singer for U2), Joe Strummer (also a guitarist for The Clash), Amy Lee (also the lead singer and keyboardist for Evanescence), Natalie Merchant (also the lead singer for 10,000 Maniacs before becoming a solo artist), Don Henley (also the drummer for The Eagles as well as a solo artist), Bernie Taupin (lyricist for Elton John), Keith Reid (lyricist for Procol Harum but not a performer in the band), and Betty Thatcher (lyricist for Renaissance but not a performer in the band).

The above incomplete list is of course subjective to some extent, but among the criteria that make lyricists literary-leaning is how their words could stand alone — or almost stand alone — without the music. They skillfully use language and/or tell stories (with perhaps a focus on a character or the unfolding of a plot) and/or create narrative tension and/or paint images and/or evoke strong emotions, etc.

Here are links to songs written by some of the lyricists I mentioned:

Coyote, Joni Mitchell:

The Boxer, Simon & Garfunkel:

Tracks of My Tears, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles:

Love Story, Taylor Swift:

If You Could Read My Mind, Gordon Lightfoot:

Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd:

London Calling, The Clash:

My Immortal, Evanescence:

Stockton Gala Days, 10,000 Maniacs:

Your Song, Elton John:

A Whiter Shade of Pale, Procol Harum:

Your thoughts on this topic or the songs I posted? Other songs or lyricists with literary chops you’d like to mention? I know I left out many.

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 high school graduation and more — is here.

I have some mixed feelings about the work of Cormac McCarthy, the renowned author who died this past Tuesday, June 13, at the age of 89. Chief among them is his dearth of women characters in major roles; he was a novelist very focused on (white) males. Also, his depiction of violence could get to the very edge of being gratuitous.

Still, there was a time about a dozen years ago when I became engrossed in his fiction — reading eight of his bleak novels almost consecutively and then later a ninth. Why?

Well, the guy could flat-out write — producing prose and dialog that almost felt biblical (albeit occasionally veering into near-nonsense). That writing had southern gothic Faulkner vibes early in McCarthy’s career (when his novels were mostly set in America’s south) and terse Hemingway vibes later in McCarthy’s career (when his novels were mostly set in America’s southwest and at times Mexico). Also, McCarthy’s troubled male characters were carefully crafted and interesting. As for the violence? Well, we of course live in a world that was and is carnage-filled, so the author was reflecting that.

Blood Meridian (1985), considered by many to be McCarthy’s masterpiece, is his most gore-filled novel — depicting a gang of mid-19th-century thugs roaming the Southwest to brutally murder Native Americans, Mexican Americans, and others — including women and children. The book’s huge, terrifying, enigmatic, pasty-pale Judge Holden character is kind of an amalgam of Captain Ahab and Moby-Dick the white whale, exemplifying the fact that McCarthy’s work also features some Herman Melville influences. The powerfully lyrical writing in Blood Meridian certainly has a Melville feel at times.

Less violent but still pretty harsh is McCarthy’s mid-20th-century-set Border Trilogy — All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain. But those 1990s-published books do have some very human characters — most notably the young ranch hands John Grady Cole and Billy Parham — a reader can glom onto.

My favorite McCarthy novel is the semi-autobiographical Suttree (1979), which mixes humor and pathos as it portrays a loner with affluent-family origins drifting through life in Tennessee.

What, you might ask, about The Road (2006) and No Country for Old Men (2005)? Certainly McCarthy’s two most famous novels, with the former winning the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the latter made into an Oscar-winning movie. Both excellent, but not my favorites by the author. The Road is almost too low-key, albeit quite moving in its way as it focuses on a father and son roaming a post-apocalyptic landscape (yes, male protagonists again). No Country, featuring a psychopathic killer, is gruesome but definitely a page-turner.

I have not yet read read McCarthy’s final two, 2022-published novels: The Passenger and Stella Maris. (The latter actually has a female protagonist! Named Alicia Western.) And I can take or leave his first two, 1960s-published books: The Orchard Keeper and Outer Dark. It obviously can take a while for many authors to start hitting on all cylinders. In fact, McCarthy didn’t have a lot of commercial success until mid-career.

Your thoughts on McCarthy, if you’ve read him?

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 — containing a YouTube-like reaction to a contentious Council meeting — is here.

In this 1945 photo, survivors of the Jewish Underground pose atop the ruins of the Mila 18 bunker in the former Warsaw Ghetto. (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Leah Hammerstein Silverstein.)

Sometimes, heroic people in literature are depicted as almost superhuman. That can be enjoyable in a novel, even as those characters aren’t exactly realistic. But when heroic people have plenty of flaws yet still act bravely when the chips are down, well, attention must be paid.

I thought about that last week while reading Leon Uris’ Mila 18 — a gripping, heartbreaking historical novel that culminates with 1943’s desperate armed uprising against the Nazis by Jewish residents trapped in the Warsaw Ghetto. Before that resistance action, we meet the women and men who will directly or tangentially take part, and, while some are almost saint-like, a number of others are far from perfect. Several are excessively cautious or possess nasty tempers or are having extramarital affairs or are not the best of parents, etc. It makes their eventual heroism more relatable, and makes readers who themselves are imperfect contemplate what they might have done in that situation. Go down fighting before facing near-certain death against a brutal force with infinitely more firepower? Or acquiesce to being transferred to concentration camps for the slim chance of being chosen for slave labor amid everyone else being genocidally murdered?

Other novels — often wartime-set books — that feature flawed, realistic, relatable heroines and heroes include Herman Wouk’s War and Remembrance, Kate Quinn’s The Alice Network, Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, etc.

In the latter two works, there is a clear arc from cowardice to courageousness for Henry Fleming (the soldier protagonist of Crane’s classic) and for Harry Potter’s Hogwarts schoolmate Neville Longbottom.

Quinn’s The Alice Network focuses on a World War I spy ring of women who feel far from fearless inside but intrepidly do what needs to be done.

The main characters in War and Remembrance‘s large cast are members of the Henry family — father, mother, two sons, one daughter — who all have personal lives that are checkered to some extent. But they mostly do the right thing during World War II, with one paying the ultimate price.

A character who bravely fights all kinds of self-doubt is Adah of Buchi Emecheta’s Second Class Citizen. She determinedly attends school in Nigeria even though discouraged as a girl from doing so, and even gets beaten for her desire for an education. She eventually relocates to England, deals with racism there, and escapes an abusive husband she had made the bad decision to marry — all while juggling a career and parenthood.

Then there’s of course Sydney Carton, in Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, who’s a lazy and alcoholic attorney before gradually reaching the point where he finds redemption by making one of literature’s most heroic decisions.

Your thoughts on 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 — again about a court case that makes some of my town’s leaders and their attorneys look pathetic — is here.

I’ve written about diversity in literature before, but this time I’m going to be a bit more specific. As in the welcome increased diversity in thrillers and mysteries during the past few decades.

Many right-wing Republicans would find that “woke,” but they’re welcome to fall asleep listening to Ron DeSantis speeches.

There was of course some diversity in long-ago mysteries and thrillers, but old novels in those genres often featured white male detectives in lead roles and mostly “conventional” women in supporting roles. If there were rare inclusions of people of color, those characters were usually depicted in cringe stereotypical fashion.

Famous white male detectives of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century included Edgar Allan Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin (in three short stories rather than any novels), Charles Dickens’ Inspector Bucket, Wilkie Collins’ Sergeant Cuff, Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, Dorothy L. Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey, Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade, and Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, among others.

There were a few long-ago exceptions of strong females as leads or co-stars in crime fiction, including Miss Marple and Harriet Vane in the novels by the aforementioned Christie and Sayers, respectively; Marian Halcombe of Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White; and…Nancy Drew! But the portrayal of people of color in, say, Christie’s otherwise fabulous Death on the Nile? Ugh. And LGBTQ+ people were usually not portrayed at all; if they were, it was almost always in a veiled, negative way.

I got to thinking about all this last week while reading Still Life (2005), the absorbing debut novel in Louise Penny’s series starring investigator Armand Gamache. He’s a white guy, but the residents of Three Pines — the small Canadian town where the murder in Still Life occurs — are a wonderful mix: a Black woman who owns a bookstore, a white female artist, a white female poet, two gay restaurant operators, etc. Plus some female investigators and a Jewish female prosecutor. Most are three-dimensional; their color, gender, sexual orientation, and religion/culture are part of who they are, but not all of who they are.

There was a similar mix in Caleb Carr’s The Alienist and its scintillating sequel, The Angel of Darkness — both written in the 1990s and both set in the 1890s. The team investigating some very seedy goings-on include white men, a woman, a Black man, and two Jewish detective brothers. Given the 19th-century timeframe, Sara Howard, Cyrus Montrose, and Marcus and Lucius Isaacson are hit with plenty of nasty societal bias, but the mostly cordial interactions within the investigating team are inspiring. Everyone is respected for what they bring to the table.

Women and people of color who are the flat-out stars of crime series? They include private investigator Kinsey Millhone of Sue Grafton’s “Alphabet Mysteries” (first installment published in 1982), Black private investigator Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins of Walter Mosley’s novels (debut book in 1990), and bounty hunter Stephanie Plum of Janet Evanovich’s novels (a 1994 start), to name a few protagonists. Oh, and Rita Mae Brown’s 1990-launched mysteries with Mary “Harry” Haristeen (and some animal detectives 🙂 ) as well as Dorothy Gilman’s Mrs. Pollifax novels starring an amateur CIA agent. That latter series, which began in 1966, does have some stereotypical moments with its senior-citizen lead character, but overall Emily P. is fairly modern in her way.

A female investigator co-starring in a series? That would be Robin Ellacott of J.K. Rowling’s crime novels. Male investigator Cormoran Strike was the initial focus of the series (written under the pen name Robert Galbraith), but Ellacott moved into a position of essentially being equal to Strike.

Quite a few of John Grisham’s novels — The Racketeer, The Judge’s List, The Client, etc. — have Black characters as protagonists or in memorable secondary roles. And Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels (now co-written by Andrew Child) have plenty of women and people of color (female or male) as significant supporting players.

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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 current court case that makes some of my town’s leaders and their attorneys look pathetic — is here.