The False Friend by Myla Goldberg
My rating: 4/5 cats
i love the words of myla goldberg.
and i love stories about childhood mysteries.
this is a quick one, but well worth it.
when i went to the “RIP, borders” sale, this was the only book in my head on my “look for it” list. and i saw it and squealed, and it helped to dispel the black cloud of gloom over the staff and other shoppers.
it did.
the basics: celia, at eleven, was best friends with a girl named djuna, with whom she had a volatile and competitive relationship. their gang was completed by three other girls who were clearly only satellites, “additions,” background girls.
one day, djuna goes missing in the woods and celia tells everyone she saw her get into a stranger’s car. twenty years later, she realizes “shit, i totally made that up! i saw her fall in a hole and vanish.”
so, feeling intensely guilty, she returns home to confess to her parents, track down the other three girls, and come to terms with her memories, her lies, and her current troubles with her boyfriend.
but no one believes her.
it’s complicated.
and she learns/remembers some things about her past that were better forgotten.
this is the second book i have read recently in which a central female character is blissfully unaware of what a bully she is/was. at least in this book, twenty years have passed in between and so it is more realistic that she would completely blank out her own behavior, but it makes me wonder and worry. was i a bully?? would i even know it if i was?? i mean, i know i am a little bit of a bossy bear now, but i don’t think i am particularly bullyish. but it is food for thought. because kids are little monsters, and i was one of them. she puts it well:
The unadult mind is immune to logic or foresight, unschooled by consequence, and endowed with a biblical sense of justice.
yep. little emotional reactors turning every moment into the most important moment of all time and taking names…
but this has positive consequences, too:
What struck Celia most about young children was the intensity of their passions, life too new to be modulated, perspective a possession not yet acquired. At that age friendship was a continuous present based on proximity and the shared fact of being alive. Heartbreak and betrayal were commonplace, authentic and ardent each time, forgotten within moments.
she describes childhood very well. she also describes the return to the nest well.
Celia was seduced by the simplicity of her relationship to her meal. It was too much food, really, a plate filled according to a mother’s concern and not a daughter’s appetite.
having just returned from a weekend “home,” i am quite familiar with the parent/adult child dynamic. i am quite nostalgic as a result.
this was not ultimately the most convincing psychological study, but there was so much to enjoy in this book, i would recommend it. so i am.
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