Female Friendship in Fiction: Ten Favourite Books

Earlier this month, I wrote a themed post on Sisters in Literature, where I showcased ten books that featured two or more sisters either as central characters or as part of an ensemble cast. I wanted to do something similar in this piece, and so here I am highlighting some of my favourite books in fiction that explore female friendship. These friendships either constitute the central storyline in the books in question or feature on the side. Some of these literary friendships are enduring but tumultuous, some are unsettling and eerie, while others are immensely therapeutic.

So without further ado, here are the ten books. You can read the detailed reviews on each by clicking on the title links…

EX-WIFE by Ursula Parrott

Encapsulating the heydays of the Jazz Age, Ex-Wife is a wonderful, whip-smart tale of marriage, relationships, freedom, and women’s independence set in 1920s New York.

The book begins with Patricia, our narrator, telling us that her husband left her four years ago making her the ex-wife of the title. Through Patricia’s reminisces, we learn of her marriage to Peter at a very young age, the events leading up to their separation, and how her life pans out thereafter post that tumultuous period. Luckily, Patricia is not completely down and out; she has her job after all, and a new friendship with Lucia, another ex-wife five years older than her. The two women decide to rent an apartment together and thereby Patricia is flung headlong into a world of freedom, endless partying, men, and one-night stands. Slowly and surely, after many hiccups, Peter recedes into the background.

Ursula Parrott’s writing is sassy, wise, and sharp – snappy one-liners, easy camaraderie, and an air of irreverence are abundant and belie some of the darker moments in the book marked by heartaches, tragedies, disappointments, and wistful yearnings. Patricia’s narrative is laced with the wisdom of hindsight and there’s much humour in her retelling as there is poignancy and understated sadness.

THE ICE PALACE by Tarjei Vesaas (Translated from Norwegian by Elizabeth Rokkan)

The Ice Palace is a haunting, unsettling tale of two Norwegian eleven-year-old girls, Siss and Unn, both as different as chalk and cheese but drawn to each other to form an unlikely friendship. Tarjei Vesaas’ prose is as clear as ice and as brilliant as a diamond in a narrative where things are implied, never explicitly stated. There is a dreamlike quality to the narrative that explores the themes of loss, friendship, redemption and recovery, and the power of nature.

THE HEARING TRUMPET by Leonora Carrington

If you thought a story centred on a 92-year-old protagonist was bound to be dull and depressing, think again. Leonora Carrington’s The Hearing Trumpet is a delicious romp, a stunning feat of the imagination, and an iconoclastic book if you will that refuses to be pigeonholed into convenient definitions and genres; and in Marian Leatherby, the nonagenarian in this superbly off-kilter tale, Carrington has created an unconventional heroine who is charming, feisty and memorable.

The book begins in a quiet, residential neighbourhood on the outskirts of an unnamed Mexican city where Marian Leatherby, our narrator, resides with her son Galahad, his wife Muriel, and their 25-year-old unmarried son Robert. Marian is not welcome in the house and with the aid of a hearing trumpet gifted to her by her charming loquacious friend Carmella who has a penchant for conjuring up unrealistic and improbable schemes and ideas, Marian learns of her family’s plot to park her in an old age home.

The old-age home is unlike anything she had imagined, and Marian soon begins to settle in, gets introduced to her fellow residents, finds herself entangled in various adventures, and is caught up in the fascinating life of an abbess. The Hearing Trumpet could be considered an extension of Carrington’s identity as Surrealist artist; the novel is a unique montage of styles and genres that resist the laws of conventional narration to brilliant effect. Just superb!

DEATH AND THE SEASIDE by Alison Moore

Death and the Seaside is a terrific tale of failure, of being easily influenced, death, and writing that unravels in a rather unexpected way. Our protagonist is Bonnie Falls, a young woman about to turn 30. Bonnie’s life so far has been without any direction or purpose and she has not much to show for her half-hearted efforts. She is a college dropout having abandoned a degree in literature, which rather limits the job opportunities available. But she is an aspiring writer with potential and has already penned the beginning of a story that is dotted with sinister happenings.

Lost and adrift, Bonnie moves out of her parents’ home to a rented flat, where she becomes pally with her landlady, the mysterious Sylvia Slythe, an unlikely friendship that also seems eerie. Sylvia is unusually interested in Bonnie, especially in the story Bonnie has written, and arranges a seaside holiday for the two of them.

Why is Sylvia so deeply interested in an unremarkable person like Bonnie? Is there something sinister lurking behind Sylvia’s motives?  This remains a mystery to the reader until it all becomes clear as the novel progresses and reaches its dark conclusion.

A VIEW OF THE HARBOUR by Elizabeth Taylor

A View of the Harbour is a beautifully written, nuanced story of love, aching loneliness, stifled desires, and the claustrophobia of a dead-end seaside town. The main plotline revolves around Beth Cazabon, a writer; her husband Robert, the town’s doctor; and Beth’s friend Tory Foyle who lives next door and is divorced. However, like the wonderful The Soul of Kindness, this is a book with an ensemble cast where the lives of the other members of the community are interwoven into that of the Cazabons. This is a drab, dreary seaside town where for desperate want of drama and excitement, the lives of its residents become fodder for speculation and gossip.

Taylor is great at depicting the small dramas playing out in the lives of these ordinary people with her characteristic flair for astute insights into human nature. This is a community struggling to feel important, where an annual innocuous, humdrum festival becomes an event to talk about given the lack of entertainment otherwise, and where the inhabitants’ lives never go unobserved. This is one of her finest books, simply top-tier Taylor.

THE ENCHANTED APRIL by Elizabeth von Arnim

The Enchanted April is a delightful, charming novel centred on four women from different walks of life who decide to spend a month in summer holidaying in Italy. These women come from completely different backgrounds, but there’s one common thread binding them: they are disillusioned with the sameness of their days and are desperately seeking an outlet that will bring some colour to their lives along with the much-needed rest and solitude.

Once ensconced in the Italian castle, the four women begin to interact with each other and it is these exchanges that make The Enchanted April so delightful – the awkward dinner conversations, the various machinations to claim the best rooms and views for themselves, and their opinions of each other. The Enchanted April then is a gem of a novel with much wit and humour to commend it. Arnim’s writing is lovely and evocative and all four women in the novel are brilliantly etched, they come across as fully realized characters. This was a perfect book to read in April with a particularly feel-good vibe in these trying times.

JANE AND PRUDENCE by Barbara Pym

Jane and Prudence is another wonderful, poignant read from Barbara Pym’s oeuvre. Jane Cleveland and Prudence Bates, despite the gap in their ages, are friends. But the two could not have been more different. Jane, having married a vicar, has settled into her role of being the clergyman’s wife, although she’s not really good at it. Having studied at Oxford, Jane had a bright future ahead of her with the possibility of writing books, but that ambition fell by the wayside once she married. Prudence, also having graduated from Oxford, is elegant, beautiful, and still single with a flurry of relationships behind her. Prudence is getting older but has lost none of her good looks, and is an independent woman working in a publisher’s office in London.

As was evident in Excellent Women and Some Tame Gazelle, Pym excels in describing the eccentricities of parish life, its small-time politics, how a woman meeting a man can set tongues wagging, and how rumours of people’s lives fly thick and fast. She also raises the point of how in an era when women were destined for marriage, being single and living independently can bring its share of rewards.

DUSTY ANSWER by Rosamond Lehmann  

Dusty Answer is a gorgeous, evocative novel of childhood friendships, thwarted love, and the intensity of hopes and expectations of youth. We follow Judith Earle, our protagonist, from her childhood to young womanhood, and the transformative relationships that leave a deep impression on her. 

Through a stream of flashbacks reflecting Judith’s reminisces, the first few chapters move back and forth between the past and present, at first mostly dwelling on Judith’s childhood, particularly her fascination with the Fyfe children – Mariella and her four cousins, Charlie, Martin, Julian, and Roddy.

After the death of her father, Judith goes to Cambridge where she meets the charismatic and enigmatic Jennifer Baird. Judith is utterly enchanted by Jennifer to the point where her time in Cambridge is entirely defined by this more than platonic friendship and evenings spent with their coterie of friends. Judith is mesmerised by Jennifer and reciprocates her feelings, there’s a sense that her love for Jennifer doesn’t succeed in quelling her all-consuming passion for Roddy. Once she is out of Cambridge, the Fyfe men fill up Judith’s world again. This is such an exquisitely written, melancholic novel as the characters navigate the rough terrain of early adulthood filled with heartbreak, tenderness, joys, and disappointments.  

MY BRILLIANT FRIEND by Elena Ferrante (Translated from Italian by Ann Goldstein)       

Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels took the world by storm when they were published, and My Brilliant Friend – the first book in the quartet – is where it all started. Set in a poor and violent neighbourhood in Naples, these novels chart the friendship between two women – the fiery and fiercely intelligent Lila Cerullo and the clever and hardworking Elena Greco. Their story begins in My Brilliant Friend when the girls are eight years old and ends with the last novel The Story of the Lost Child when the two women are in their sixties. Intense, frenetic, cinematic in scope with richly drawn characters, all four books are fabulous. I came very late to these books, but it was essentially high-quality binge reading!

THE LEVANT TRILOGY by Olivia Manning

My perennial favourites and featured in quite a few of my themed posts, both of Olivia Manning’s stunning trilogies – at the core a brilliant portrayal of a marriage against the backdrop of war – helped me navigate some challenging times in 2019.

The first one i.e. The Balkan Trilogy highlights the chaotic lives of Guy and Harriet Pringle – British expats in Bucharest and subsequently in Athens during the Second World War. In The Levant Trilogy, we follow the Pringles to Cairo in Egypt, followed by Damascus and then Jerusalem amid the raging Desert War.

In both the trilogies, Manning superbly brings to life different cities and their citizens during wartime – the increasing uncertainty of having to flee is nerve-wracking, and yet at the same time there’s this sense of denial that maybe the conflict will not impact day to day life after all. 

While Guy and Harriet Pringle are the central characters with their marriage a focal point of these books, the supporting cast is great too…particularly Yakimov, an aristocrat fallen on hard times, and the wealthy, irreverent Angela Hooper who is forced to grapple with a personal tragedy. Angela’s friendship with Harriet in The Levant Trilogy, particularly, becomes important as the Pringle marriage is severely tested.

And that’s it! I had fun compiling this list, and plan to write more such themed pieces in the future. Happy reading!