I think often about books I grew up with, like Anne of Green Gables or Understood Betsy or Little Women or even the Trixie Belden series. When I think of them or when I remember parts of the stories that are especially beloved, I wonder exactly what made them stand out so much that decades later, I can still repeat dialogue almost verbatim or cry over scenes. I realize that if I reread Little Women, I skip over Beth's death and Laurie and Amy's marriage. I never read about when Matthew Cuthbert died
Why am I still wounded by losses and betrayals in books of fiction I read before high school? Especially when I'm not at all wounded by things that happened when I was in high school. That was four years of really good times and really shattering heartbreaks, and yet those memories are mostly dimmed or of no relevance at all.
I can explain. I think.
The people in those books from long ago--Anne and Diana, the March girls, Betsy and little Mollie, Trixie and Honey and the Bob-Whites of the Glen--never became fictional characters to me. Even now, they're friends I grew up with.
My school friends are still friends, too, but they've aged along with me--a blessing by itself. The book friends are still as I knew them between the covers of their stories.
This probably isn't a shock to anyone else, but I was really surprised to figure it out as a reader. I always knew it as a writer. Those people who present themselves to me and wanted me to tell their stores are as real in my mind and heart as ... well, as Trixie and Anne and the March sisters.
I've always said I didn't expect to change lives with my books--I just wanted to give readers a good afternoon. I still feel that way, but I also hope they consider the people whose stories I tell to be friends.
Speaking of friends, The Girls of Tonsil Lake have been friends since they were five, and they still are. The story of the year they are 51 is one of my favorites. And Jean, Suzanne, Andi, and Vin are still my friends.
Four women whose differences only deepen the friendship forged in a needy childhood... They were four little girls living in ramshackle trailers beside a lake in rural Indiana. They shared everything from dreams to measles to boyfriends to more dreams. As they grew up, everything in their lives changed--except their friendship. Through weddings and divorces, births and deaths, one terrible secret has kept them close despite all the anger, betrayal, and pain. Now, forty years later, facing illness, divorce, career challenges, and even addiction, the women come together once again for a bittersweet month on an island in Maine. Staring down their fifties, they must consider the choices life is offering them now and face the pain of what happened long ago. Secrets are revealed and truths uncovered, but will their time together cement their lifelong friendship--or drive them apart forever?
Amazon: https://a.co/d/7391moA and https://a.co/d/4t6MnzQ
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