Copyright The Atlantic
In Toni Morrison’s Sula, the title character and Nel are friends and enemies all at once: Nel envies and eventually hates Sula but, at the end of the novel, finds herself entirely bereft without her. In Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, Lila and Elena are united by their similarities in an unforgiving world, until their differences send them hurtling away from each other. These intense, fickle friendships between women have been chronicled in literature “for as long as women have been able to publish their work,” Lily Meyer wrote in The Atlantic this week, “but the past 10 years have seen more and more novels about prickly, intellectual, and conflictedly maternal women like Elena, as well as gifted and charismatic yet abrasive ones like Lila.” Meyer added, “Perhaps most striking, the success of the Neapolitan novels seems to have begun to influence breezier genres of fiction.” First, here are five new stories from The Atlantic’s Books section: Complicated female friendships have animated not only novels, but also TV shows and films in recent years. These bonds have quickly come to constitute a genre, with its own set of tropes. The stories are almost always about a pair of girls of similar ages, evenly matched in intellect, status, or beauty; the dyad is usually inseparable, at least at first. The two also typically resent and compete with each other, measuring themselves against their double. In many cases, they feel a confusing mix of contempt and desire (these books are best when they delve into their characters’ ugly feelings or the erotic tension between them). And most of these couples will part by adulthood—only to wonder, in their later years, how much breaking away from their other half cost them. Meyer praises the lively, provocative connection between two 1970s female writers in a new novel by Ella Berman, L.A. Women. Her essay reminded me of another book that portrays this dynamic perfectly: Margaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye. A grown woman and successful artist, Elaine, remembers the girl gang that defined her childhood in postwar Toronto—Grace, Carol, and Cordelia. But whereas her friendships with Grace and Carol faded easily into the past, her vexed relationship with Cordelia lingers well into adulthood. When Elaine returns to Toronto for a retrospective of her paintings, she imagines Cordelia everywhere, just out of view. Cordelia is, in grade school, Elaine’s bully. But Cat’s Eye is unsentimental and unblinkered about the nuances of their friendship; when Elaine later gets the upper hand, she wields it without pity. There may be no better novel about the savagery and strangeness inside girls, and it is deadly serious about the stakes of their youthful business. Elaine, thinking back on their relationship, acknowledges that she and Cordelia weren’t enemies, not really. “With enemies you can feel hatred, and anger,” Atwood writes. “With hatred, I would have known what to do. Hatred is clear, metallic, one-handed, unwavering; unlike love.” All Our Brilliant Friends By Lily Meyer The explosion of novels about intense female friendships, in the Elena Ferrante mold, is changing the genre—and making it more fun. Read the full article. What to Read Boom Town, by Sam Anderson Back in 2012, Anderson, a writer for The New York Times Magazine, fell in love with Oklahoma City. He’d traveled there to write about the Thunder, just four years after the NBA team had relocated from Seattle to Oklahoma’s capital—an unlikely town for a major sports franchise. As he began to learn more about the city, the wild story of its founding (thousands of settlers claimed lots on a single day during a land rush), followed by alternating tragedies and glories, struck Anderson as a microcosm of American history. That assignment ended up inspiring him to write this brilliant, kaleidoscopic portrait of a place; his book isn’t just about sports, but it never forgets how teams and homes reflect each other’s fates, suggesting that a team begins to resemble its home the way a dog resembles its owner. Anderson hasn’t updated the book since the Thunder won the NBA championship in June, but once you’ve read it, you’ll never watch a Thunder game again without thinking of it. — Will Leitch From our list: Seven books that will change how you watch sports Out Next Week 📚 Girls Play Dead, by Jen Percy Your Weekend Read The Missing Kayaker By Jamie Thompson On the afternoon of Sunday, August 11, 2024, a few hours after attending church with his wife and three children, Ryan Borgwardt, a 44-year-old carpenter, left home with his kayak, tackle box, and fishing rod and arrived at Big Green Lake, one of the deepest lakes in Wisconsin. The Perseid meteor shower was expected to peak that night, one of the best times of the year to see shooting stars. Stargazers could glimpse dozens an hour, golden streaks that appeared to fall from the constellation Perseus. At about 10 p.m., Ryan pushed the kayak into the inky-black water. He glided past the water lilies and cattails and headed toward the lake’s deepest part, near its western end. It was so dark, he could barely see beyond the kayak’s nose. Above him, the night sky sparkled.
