Sunday, August 25, 2013

Seven top novels about the horrors of adolescence

Janice Clark is a writer and designer living in Chicago. She grew up in Mystic, Connecticut, land of whaling and pizza. She received her MFA from New York University.

Clark's new novel is The Rathbones.

For Publishers Weekly she named seven of her favorite coming-of-age novels. One title on the list:
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Pip’s journey from blacksmith’s boy to gentleman comes full circle when he learns to value not the trappings of wealth and class but the quiet strength of Joe at the forge and the nobility of the convict Magwitch, truer than that of any of the ruling class in Dickens’ novel. Pip learns to trust his own conscience and reverts to the kind nature of his boyhood, before Miss Havisham lured him into her spidery realm.
Read about another book on Clark's list.

Great Expectations appears on Amy Wilkinson's list of five books Kate Middleton should have read while waiting to give birth, Kate Clanchy's top ten list of novels that reflect the real qualities of adolescence, Joseph Olshan's list of six favorite books, John Mullan's lists of ten of the best clocks in literature, ten of the best appropriate deaths in literature, ten of the best castles in literature, ten of the best Hamlets, ten of the best card games in literature, and ten best list of fights in fiction. It also made Tony Parsons' list of the top ten troubled males in fiction, David Nicholls' top ten list of literary tear jerkers, and numbers among Kurt Anderson's five most essential books. The novel is #1 on Melissa Katsoulis' list of "twenty-five films that made it from the book shelf to the box office with credibility intact."

Read an 1861 review of "Great Expectations".

--Marshal Zeringue