The False Friend (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Characters/People edit see section history

• Celia Durst: Add a description of this character.
• Celia: The central character who works as a Performance Auditor in Chicago
• Djuna Pearson: Celia's best friend in fifth grade who later disappears.
• Huck: Celia's boyfriend. High school history teacher
• Noreen: Celia's mother.
• Warren: Celia's father.
• Becky
• Grace Pearson: Djuna's mother, English professor
• Becky Miller
• Leanne
• Jeremy: Celia's brother
• Daniel
• Josie
• Pam: Jeremy's wife
• Lee
• Gryzbowski
• Mrs. Linke
• Frank
• Dennis

Quotes edit see section history

• “We are, because we remember. As each new present blinks out, its heart is weighed and then judged, preserved in mental amber or consumed.”

• “The unadult mind is immune to logic or foresight, unschooled by consequence, and endowed with a biblical sense of justice.”

• “Whenever she came back home, her mind resumed all its worst habits: the hair trigger sensibility, the rush to judgment, the combative reflex that dug a dividing line between herself and the rest of the world.”

• “He spent his acne-tormented teens becoming a good listner, sparing him from the interpersonal laziness of the congenitally attractive.”

• “He'd been kissing her good-bye when he realized that it had been weeks since they'd last had sex, and it struck him that something was happening to them, had been happening for a while now--a sound beneath the threshold of their hearing, a vibration so slow and steady that it had been mistaken for stillness.”

• “Each day became a new oportunity to demonstrate the value of their company, to prove their facility for being cool.”

• “Because it was impossible to intuit thefuture significance of any given moment, it was always a good idea to be your best possible self, increasing the odds of not wanting to disown whatever inadvertent history you created.”

• “Celia wondered why her mother's eyes had lways seemed small in photos: Noreen opened them wider for her than for any camera. Celia marveled at how long she had squandered such grace by being unprepared to receive it.”

• “Equity, they came to realize, was not the same thing as equivalence, as evidenced by bedside tables and snowflakes the world over.”

• “Well, I guess that makes you geniuses of the mind-fuck.”

• “I suppose that's the point of belonging to a church," she continued. "So that there's always someone to stick by you. Which is why we atheists are so attached to our shrinks." She laughed abruptly, a sound like the bark of a seal. "An expensive proposition, atheism. A chaplain would have been much more economical."”

• “We cannot become the person we long to be by ignoring the persons we've been.”

  Richard Hirsch

• “A friendship like hers and Djuna's could only ever be a child's possession. Only a child could withstand its stranglehold.”

• “To Celia at age eleven, their collective behavior had felt natural, Leanne the rodent to their parliament of owls.”

• “Huck was convinced of the redemptive powers of sibling communication, a faith consecrated inside the silent cathedral of the only child.”

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• Because it was impossible to intuit the future significance of any given moment, it was always a good idea to be your best possible self, increasing the odds of not wanting to disown whatever inadvertent history you created.

  Highlighted by 17 Kindle customers

• I think, therefore I am is too vague. We are, because we remember.

  Highlighted by 17 Kindle customers

• The unadult mind is immune to logic or foresight, unschooled by consequence, and endowed with a biblical sense of justice.

  Highlighted by 14 Kindle customers

• “The older I get, the less I mind being wrong. As it turns out, life gets a lot more relaxing once you decide you don’t know a damn thing about it.”

  Highlighted by 13 Kindle customers

• Whenever she came back home, her mind resumed all its worst habits: the hair-trigger sensitivities, the rush to judgment, the combative reflex that dug a dividing line between herself and the rest of the world.

  Highlighted by 12 Kindle customers

• Family conflicts were less often aired than suffocated, civility heaped upon civility until the trouble was smothered under the accumulated weight of so much decorum.

  Highlighted by 10 Kindle customers

• What struck Celia most about young children was the intensity of their passions, life too new to be modulated, perspective a possession not yet acquired. At that age friendship was a continuous present based on proximity and the shared fact of being alive. Heartbreak and betrayal were commonplace, authentic and ardent each time, forgotten within moments.

  Highlighted by 9 Kindle customers

• I didn’t know him back then. I loved him, of course, and I worried for him, and I tried to give him what I thought he needed, but to really know a person, especially your own child … A sense of independence is so important, not to mention a sense of trust, and if you want to give your child those, well, I think that knowing them is a sacrifice you might have to make.”

  Highlighted by 7 Kindle customers

• Celia realized why her mother’s eyes had always seemed small in photos: Noreen opened them wider for her than for any camera. Celia marveled at how long she had squandered such grace by being unprepared to receive it.

  Highlighted by 6 Kindle customers

• She looked at it briefly, her eyes sweeping over the faces of students whose adult trajectories would lead them either to gloss over these moments or to spend their lives pining for their return.

  Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Chicago
• Scranton
• Jensenville

First Sentence edit see section history

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• Bullying: Describe this theme.
• False memories

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Myla Goldberg (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 813.54

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary