Maybe itās because I come from a family that expresses conflict, shall we say, indirectly, but nothing fascinates me the way relationships do. What do we desire, what do we offer? And how much more do we care about friendships and family bonds than world peace? I also love stories about passions we pursue professionally, and ever since I fell in love with the food and wine world, thatās the world Iāve written about and the world in which my charactersā intense relationships play out. Real drama plays out over a drink or at a dinner table, and of course a glass of wine only unleashes a little more.
I know I have those lost friendships I still wonder aboutāwe worked together, lived together, traveled to beach towns together, drank tequila together! We went to very bad bars and made very bad decisions together! Howād we lose touch?āand thank God these brilliant writers do too.
Schappell and Offill gather a cocktail partyās worth of lost platonic loves, reminding me that Iām not alone and giving meaningful thought to the monumental importance of friendship and the pain of losing it.
Losing a friend can be as painful and as agonizing as a divorce or the end of a love affair, yet it is rarely written about or even discussed. THE FRIEND WHO GOT AWAY is the first book to address this near-universal experience, bringing together the brave, eloquent voices of writers like Francine Prose, Katie Roiphe, Dorothy Allison, Elizabeth Strout, Ann Hood, Diana Abu Jabar, Vivian Gornick, Helen Schulman, and many others. Some write of friends who have drifted away, others of sudden breakups that took them by surprise. Some even celebrate their liberation from unhealthy or destructive relationships. Yetā¦
Iām a little obsessed with the sheer ferocity with which Elisa Albert writes the world, and when I this short, sharp novel the phrase that stuck in my head was, āThis is all teeth.ā And boy, do I mean that in a good way.
Ari Walker is still trying to get her footing after the birth of her baby when Mina, a former cult musician, moves to town and the two bond hard. I still think about Albertās description of Mina, her round cheeks and her messy hair and the jarring realization that this woman is not affecting carelessness with standard beauty norms, but truly does not give a good goddamn. Itās about those people who are both alien and intimate and who make you more yourself.
Sometimes I'm with the baby and I think: you're my heart and my soul, and I would die for you. Other times I think: tiny moron, leave me the fuck alone
A year has passed since Ari gave birth and still she can't locate herself in her altered universe. Sleep-deprived, lonely and unprepared, she struggles through the strange, disjointed rhythms of her days and nights. Her own mother long dead and her girlhood friendships faded, she is a woman in need. When Mina - older, alone, pregnant - moves to town, Ari sees hope of a comrade-in-arms. Perhaps the hostileā¦
If youāre intrigued by the psychology of relationships this is the novel for you.
Described as a modern-day Rebecca, this is a story of a bereaved manās obsession with his deceased married lover, Michelle. Determined to find out all he can about Michelleās life when she wasnāt with him,ā¦
This was the first novel I encountered that captured the long half-life of an adolescent friendship that never leaves you, a first love that was both toxic and transformative.
Atwood allows the ripple effect of Elaineās friendship with Cordelia to echo throughout her adulthood, her painting career, her marriage. Maybe it stuck with me because I hadnāt realized you could write about the good and the bad in one character and both could be so gripping, or because of the way Atwood captures the moment when another girlās entire existence is so intoxicatingāher family and her home and her clothing and attitudeāthat you want to consume it whole.
And how devastating it is to see that girlās power wane.
Elaine Risley, a painter, returns to Toronto to find herself overwhelmed by her past. Memories of childhood - unbearable betrayals and cruelties - surface relentlessly, forcing her to confront the spectre of Cordelia, once her best friend and tormentor, who has haunted her for forty years. 'Not since Graham Greene has a novelist captured so forcefully the relationship between school bully and victim...Atwood's games are played, exquisitely, by little girls' LISTENER An exceptional novel from the winner of the 2000 Booker Prize
Whatās more fraught and intimate than friends? Sisters.
Munroās title story is about a relationship of extremes: sisters Char and Et can laugh over the darkest shit imaginable, and yet they also have certain psychic rooms theyāll never let the other into. Is this love or hostility? More happens in here than I can say, except that Char is the beautiful sister and Et the sharp-tongued, practical one, and an old flame returns and wreaks havoc.
Itās Munro, so there is sex, death, and betrayal, but delivered so obliquely you arenāt always sure what the characters deliberately did. Maybe thatās why this story enraptures me: itās about the things youāll never get to know, and I always think I'll figure it out this time.
Not So Little Things by Kyle Ann Robertson unravels the meticulously crafted life of Tina, an artist engrossed in the intricate world of historically accurate miniatures. As she dutifully honors her deceased father's desire for her to follow in his artistic and historical footsteps, Tina's controlled existence is shaken byā¦
Is there no end to my obsession with adolescent friendship? Apparently not.
Adolescence is the moment when everything blossoms, collides, and explodes: Sils and Berie were inseparable and insufferable teenagers together (itās okay, we all were) and Berie is looking back on the summer they were fifteen from her own flawed marriage years later.
They were just girls: smoking and drinking, leaving each other cottage cheese sandwiches after school, strumming guitars, cracking on Silsās besotted, lunkhead boyfriend. Then why does it feel like such a lost paradise to Berie and to us? Because this is the moment you feel adult powers awaken, before you grasp the consequences of your power. Because no one is running the frog hospital. Because itāll never be that vivid again.
"Touches and dazzles and entertains. An enchanting novel." --The New York Times
In this moving, poignant novel by the bestselling author of Birds of America we share a grown womanās bittersweet nostalgia for the wildness of her youth.
The summer Berie was fifteen, she and her best friend Sils had jobs at Storyland in upstate New York where Berie sold tickets to see the beautiful Sils portray Cinderella in a strapless evening gown. They spent their breaks smoking, joking, and gossiping. After work they followed their own reckless rules, teasing the fun out of small town life, sleeping in theā¦
Wine People is about the transformative relationship between two women working in the male-dominated wine-importing industry. Wren is an outsider who worked her way into the wine world, and Thessaly was born into it, but they are both passionate about wine. When their company is engulfed in a succession drama, they become rivals and then cautious allies. Thereās European travel, incredible food and wine, workplace ambition and backstabbing, and two young women who figure out who they want to beāand if each can help the other become that person.
Love and War in the Jewish Quarter
by
Dora Levy Mossanen,
A breathtaking journey across Iran where war and superstition, jealousy and betrayal, and passion and loyalty rage behind the impenetrable walls of mansions and the crumbling houses of the Jewish Quarter.
Against the tumultuous background of World War II, Dr. Yaran will find himself caught in the thrall of theā¦
Trapped in her enormous, devout Catholic family in 1963, Annie creates a hilarious campaign of lies when the pope dies and their family friend, Cardinal Stefanucci, is unexpectedly on the shortlist to be elected the first American pope.
Driven to elevate her family to the holiest of holy rollers inā¦