Book Review: “The False Friend” by Myla Goldberg
True or False?
Though she hasn’t been seemingly all that active in recent years, Myla Goldberg is an American writer who needs little introduction to those of a certain vintage. Her debut novel, Bee Season, was adapted into a feature film starring Richard Gere in 2005. She’s also the subject of a song by indie rock stalwarts the Decemberists. Her second novel, Wickett’s Remedy, is criminally underrated and required reading in today’s day and age as it is set during the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic. Her third novel, The False Friend, was originally published in hardcover in 2010 and is one of those books that I eagerly bought when it came out — only to not read it until now. Why? Well, I made the mistake of looking at an online review of the book, which completely gave away the ending. So, I wanted to read this at a point in my life when I forgot what I read in that spoiler. I am going to try not to repeat that mistake here, but, suffice it to say, while this is a book that seemingly gets mediocre reviews — as I write this, it has a measly 2.78 out of five-star average on Goodreads.com, a social book review and ranking site — it is much better than people give it credit for. Plus, Ms. Goldberg could use as much positive publicity as she can get. Many years ago, I interacted with her online and she was friendly and affable to me, a struggling writer who asked her for a favour that she was willing to grant had things gone a certain way. For that, I am grateful — and, yes, probably a bit biased. However, The False Friend is far from a middling read. It doesn’t exemplify perfection if you expect it to be a certain type of story, but it does have a lot going for it.
The novel centers on 32-year-old Celia, who has travelled from her home in Chicago to her parents’ house in small-town New York for a visit. However, the reason for this vacation of sorts is that she has a secret to unburden herself with. When she was an 11-year-old girl, a classmate of hers went missing. Celia told her parents (and the authorities) that her friend Djuna was abducted by someone driving a red (or brown, according to other “eyewitnesses”) car while they walked down a dangerous road. As an adult, Celia changes the story and admits she had lied as a child: instead, Djuna fell into some kind of deep hole when she ran into the woods alongside said dangerous road. She relays this to her mother, who doesn’t believe her. She then hunts down her other friends who don’t believe this “revised” tale, either. So, who is telling the truth? Celia or those in her present and past social circles?
As you can tell, this is a novel that centers itself on the premise of the unreliable narrator (or is she?). It turns out that Celia might be something of a less-than-savory person, too, so she additionally has traits that make her very unlikable. Thus, The False Friend is a novel that deals with — and quite astonishingly well, I might add — narrational trust. Do we trust and like Celia? Does she have a reason why she is changing her story? Does her trip to her parents have an ulterior motive? That is, is she also looking for more information about what really happened from her friends and family, or is she just trying to see if their stories jive with hers (and for possibly a good reason)? There is a myriad of possibilities that Goldberg travels down with this novel and she does a deft job of juggling a lot of narrative threads and intended outcomes. How it all turns out should remain a surprise because, in the end, the resolution to this novel is, in some ways, quite unexpected. That is to say, if you’re looking for finality in terms of “what really happened,” the book only teases at it and doesn’t explicitly come out and say it — which is the issue the negative reviewer in that online review I read had with this tale. However, if you’re willing to read between the lines and realize that this novel moves from one thought — what happened? — to another — what were the individuals involved with the happening like? — then you’ll find that this is a wholly appealing and unexpected tale of bullying among females.
Since publishing this novel, Goldberg has been relatively quiet as she has only written one more book since and that was in 2019 if Wikipedia is up-to-date and current. It’s a shame that Goldberg hasn’t been more prolific as she’s a writer of considerable talent (and she’s really, really nice to boot, which isn’t always true of writers — as much as writers are supposed to know something about the human condition and thus have something of a heart). Let this be a re-evaluation of The False Friend as a book of merit and power. The low rating on Goodreads is from sourpusses who may have been expecting a more conventional whodunnit. If you’re looking for something a little more — a book that goes into unexpected places, even if an enigma of sorts remains at its centre — then you might be surprised and pleased with this work of commanding fiction. The False Friend says a lot about aggression in women and girls, and also is a book about making amends of sorts. It is also a novel about unforgivable and condescending people, and at what point do the attitudes of others relate to the things you have done in your past. All in all, the message might be a bit hard to swallow but The False Friend makes clear that not all sins are exonerated, and people may lie to cover their sense of guilt. That message might fly over people’s heads with this book, and it may not be a popular sentiment, but kudos to Myla Goldberg for being authentic with it. We need to hear more from her, and I hope she has additional books in her. Because, well, I’d like to have more, please of where this came from.
Myla Goldberg’s The False Friend was published by Anchor on August 23, 2011.
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Get in touch: zacharyhoule@rogers.com
