Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
Oh the casual wickedness of little children and how succinctly Rosa Guy manages to capture it in her book ‘The Friends’! Although, it’s also about kindness, love, family, friendship, and forgiveness.
Fourteen-year-old Phyllisia Cathy is a smart cookie, but moving to New York’s Harlem from the West Indies means losing all her friends and facing profound isolation, bullying, and racism. Edith Jackson is the only girl in class who treats Phyllisia like a human, but Phyl can’t stand Edith’s shabby clothes, torn socks, and tardiness. Despite their socioeconomic class differences, the two girls eventually become friends, and the novel follows how Edith’s friendship becomes a turning point in Phyl’s life.
While the growing bond between Phyl and Edith is the heart of ‘The Friends’, the novel also delves into Phyl’s strained relationship with her father, her admiration for her ailing mother, and her relatable love-hate dynamic with her older sister, Ruby. In the cold, unfriendly city of New York, Phyl isn’t just isolated outside, at home, she lives in fear of her strict, domineering father, Calvin, a handsome, towering restaurant owner who cruelly refers to her as “the ugly one.”
Rosa Guy’s language and storytelling are simple and conversational, and I found the evolving relationship between Phyl and her sister Ruby to be the most interesting element of ‘The Friends‘. The siblings move from distant, bickering sisters to allies against their father’s growing tyranny. Ruby, once dismissive of Phyl’s struggles, becomes fiercely protective, and the two finally find friendship in each other.
Part of the reason why the sibling bond stood out more in ‘The Friends’ is that Phyl’s friendship with Edith starts out more as a transactional relationship and remains so for the most part of the novel: Phyl is in dire need of a friend in the new city, and Edith is a street-smart, tough kid, the only one open to being the new kid’s buddy. Even when Phyl begins to genuinely grow fond of her classmate, she continues to feel pangs of shame over her impoverished state of affairs.
Almost all the characters, except for Edith, are rather unlikable, especially at the start of the novel. Phyl might be lonely, but she is pompous and arrogant, carrying a superiority complex that she cruelly flaunts to humiliate Edith. Ruby, the attractive older sister, is equally self-absorbed, preferring gossip and petty drama as her favorite pastime. Their beautiful mother, Ramona, sinks into self-pity and ill health, neglecting her maternal duties and forcing her daughters to care for her instead. And then there’s Calvin, temperamental, hypocritical, classist, domineering braggart who rules the household through fear.
Rosa Guy deftly explores how deeply parents influence the formation of their children’s character. Though Phyl claims to despise her father, even pointedly calling him by his first name, she unknowingly inherits many of his traits. Spanning two years of Phyl’s life, ‘The Friends’ traces her growing self-awareness as she begins to recognize those similarities, a realization that both embarrasses her and reshapes how she views their relationship.
In the end, this novel is a coming-of-age tale that’s more about Phyl’s growth as a young woman than about her friendship with Edith, even though the latter serves as a catalyst for many of the plot’s developments. The climactic pages push the friends into a new phase of their relationship and lives, but most notably, they showcase a moving transformation in the father–daughter dynamic. My only complaint? Rosa Guy could’ve given us a more decisive ending instead of leaving things on an open-ended note.
Rating for ‘The Friends’: 4 on 5 stars.
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