Friendship is a perennially popular topic for writers …
Friendships often last lifetimes, outliving romantic relationships, and even marriages. Indeed, when love leaves the room, it’s often our friendships that get us through the aftermath. But friendships can also be as complicated as passionate affairs, with rivalries and jealousies clouding the water. But what is bad for friendship is often great for literary drama.
CLASSIC OF THE GENRE: MY BRILLIANT FRIEND by Elena Ferrante. The first book in Ferrante’s brilliant Neapolitan quartet chronicles the beginning of the captivating lifelong friendship of Elena (Lenu) and Lila. It became an instant classic, sold 14 million copies and counting and was named the New York Times number one book of the 21st century. The story of Elena and Lila begins in the 1950s in a tough neighbourhood in Naples. The girls are kindred spirits, finding comfort in each other. Ferrante’s portrait of their friendship is so absorbing and tenderly drawn, against the backdrop of a changing city and world, it’s easy to see why it captured readers’ imaginations. The parallel mystery of Ferrante’s identity became almost as enticing.
FEELGOOD FAVOURITE: OH MY GOD WHAT A COMPLETE AISLING by Sarah Breen and Emer McLysaght. The Aisling series started life as a Facebook page whose popularity could not be contained and spilled over into books, merchandise and phenomenal sales (the series has sold almost half a million copies). The five Aisling books focus on the eponymous heroine, a young everywoman up from the country, making her way in Dublin. But the real heart of the books was Aisling’s abiding love for her friends – “the girls”. Element Pictures is adapting the books for the screen, which brings me to Sally Rooney, whose book Normal People was also adapted by Element.
INSTANT HIT: CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS by Sally Rooney. The Irish superstar’s debut novel announced a huge literary talent to the world with its story of Trinity College students Frances and Bobbi and their former relationship, friendship, and romantic entanglements. When the two enter the world of Melissa and Nick, a glamorous older couple, they get in over their heads. As much about female friendship as the story of burgeoning love.
JUST PUBLISHED: LA WOMEN by Ella Berman. LA Women is described as My Beautiful Friend meets Daisy Jones and the Six and tells the story of a rivalry between two ambitious friends and their varying fortunes. Lane Warren’s literary star has been on the wane until she makes a morally compromising publishing deal to write a book that is based on her best friend Gala’s life. Gala Margolis and Lane have been friends for a decade but it’s a complicated friendship with shades of envy and jealousy. When Gala goes missing this becomes a compelling mystery. The book, steeped in 1960s LA atmosphere, is loosely inspired by the infamous rivalry between Joan Didion and Eve Babitz, which brings me to …
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: DIDION AND BABITZ by Lily Anolik. If you’re a Didion fan this is a must-read. Written in the salacious style of a gossip magazine, it is an unputdownable account of the relationship between the legendary Didion and the lesser-known writer Eve Babitz. The book is meticulously researched. Anolik had previously written a biography of Babitz, which is how she came to discover a box full of notebooks and letters between Didion and Babitz from their time in Hollywood in the 1960s and 1970s, upon which source material this book is based. Didion and Babitz had a complicated friendship that turned sour. Fresh insight into how Didion turned herself into an icon of cool.
READ MORE: New Books To Curl Up With This October
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