The False Friend by Myla Goldberg

I read Goldberg's book, Bee Season, several years ago and enjoyed it, so I grabbed this when I found it in the library. It recounts the story of a pair of 11 year old girls who were best friends twenty-one years ago, but who bullied and tormented other girls who wanted to be part of their clique.  The story is told in the present, from the point of view of Celia, who is now 32 and living in Chicago, and reliving the tragic event that separated the two friends permanently. Djuna, the other half of the duo, disappeared one day in Celia's company in the woods, and Celia has reminiscences of that day that haunt her and force her to return home to tell (or find out) the truth of what really happened.
The book explores how our memories of childhood are sometimes flawed and distorted, how we change as individuals with maturation and how terribly cruel young girls can be to each other.  The book took me back to my adolescence and how I sometimes was bullied or bullied others.  Celia deals too with her aging parents and their inability to express themselves about troubling events in their lives.  Celia does witness a breakthrough one morning when her parents do open up and talk freely about her brother's suicide attempt and Celia's friendship with Djuna (and how they disapproved of her friend.) But then an hour later, it was as if these conversations never took place at all and her parents go back to thier usual selves.
I did enjoy this short novel, especially near the end when Celia really comes to terms with who she was as a youngster. It is a tough topic to tackle and you have to give Myla Goldberg credit for dealing with it in such an honest manner.

America America by Ethan Canin

Is this a murder mystery? Political saga? Coming of age story?  Historical fiction?  Hard to say, but it is an interesting and captivating story with all of the above included. Corey Sifter, a young boy in upstate New York, becomes involved with a wealthy family who owns most of the land and runs the local business in town. The Metareys are industrious people, whose family emigrated from Scotland and became successful through hard work and ambition.  They take in Corey, employ him, school him at private school and even help fund his college education at Haverford, outside of Philadelphia. Much of the story revolves around Senator Bonwiller's campaign for the Presidency in the early 1970's and Canin combines real candidates (Muskie, Humphrey, McGovern) with the fictional Bonwiller. It becomes pretty obvious that Bonwiller is fashioned after Teddy Kennedy, although I read an interview that disputed that obvious parallel.
The story drifts back and forth between the present, when Corey is a 50ish newspaper publisher. The story starts as he is attending the funeral of Bonwiller. Then Canin goes back to when Corey was a boy and he tells the story in bits and pieces, relaying it in a way that holds the reader's interest with mystery and a some drama. He reveals important pieces of information very subtly, for instance, the fact that his wife is a member of the Metary family, but not necessarily the one the reader would have expected him to marry.
I did enjoy this book. There were passages that seemed a bit long-winded, but overall, it was an enjoyable and very interesting read.