Rating:

Friends or Foes?

 Author: Hal Ebbott

Have you ever trusted someone, only to have that trust violently upended? Have years of your friendship ever been met with secret hate and scorn? Have you ever thought that you’d do anything to undo the knowing, to go back to the way that things were?

Among Friends is a surprisingly poignant and vicious look at toxic relationships and the resounding effects they have on our lives and families. It starts slowly and, frankly, pretentiously. Amos and Emerson have been friends for 20+ years, since they met over a game in college. Their bond goes deep, and as their circle has widened to include wives and children, they have remained interlocked. This day, then, is no different from any others. They sit down to a meal, a discussion all together, yet there are undercurrents, slights within the genteel conversation, dissipation among the butter and pastries, small jealousies and misunderstandings, dissatisfaction and a certain desire to rend and tear. It goes on, twenty plus pages, and we expect the usual literary pretension – an around-the-houses type of way to say that people are ultimately selfish, egomaniacal, and that friendship is a many headed chimera that changes based on the way you spy it out of the corner of your eyes. In other words: a monstrous, dishonest thing.

But then, the pretention finally drops and the story starts. We see so much more. We see a story of a young girl, molested by her father’s lifelong friend. We see her guilt, her inability to accept that this man – practically family – could have done such a thing. A terror at tearing apart her family’s world. But secrets will always come out, and soon the remaining friend, the innocent one, must decide who to put first: his child or his entire way of life.

As the story finds its feet, we shift among the main characters. Amos is a therapist and, ultimately, a man with surprisingly little insight. He is bamboozled by the complexity and inherent evilness around him. Is it a willful lack to see though, or something else? Is he ultimately a good man in a corrupt world, or a delusional man who will do anything to belong?

Set against him is Emerson, a lawyer, a man of wealth and means and background. Emerson is a fine friend, yet there is the air of something cruel about him, a sociopath subtly hidden under a smiling veneer. He is the friend we all fear – and unfortunately the type of friend most of us have, however shortly, at a pivotal point in our lives. But he is also the maker of the mirage and therefore holds a cunning power.

Image by Med Ahabchane from Pixabay

Against the backdrop of these two men’s friendships are their wives. Claire, Amos’ cold, practical wife who lords her privilege over him constantly, and Retsy, Emerson’s cowering wife. And then we have the daughters: Anna and Sophie, whose teenage friendship is at a critical stage, a moment where they can either connect or forever distance themselves from the emotions and heartaches of others. Theirs then is an early version of Amos and Emerson’s friendship, a glance back in time at how such a thing began and how easily it could have been torn down.

As the story progresses, we see the impact of sexual assault on the daughter – a young teenager – and the family. We also witness the heartbreaking reality of mothers who refuse to believe their daughters, who choose to see young women as “asking for it” when they, of all people, should know better, should be the protectors and the empathizers. This, sadly, is not an uncommon turn of events, and this is also the moment where the story pivots. What will the family choose to do: stand up for their daughter and demand justice, or choose to live in the lie, to stay comfortable with the mirage of a 20+ year friendship that has intwined families?

Among Friends is a brutal, unfortunately truthful look at the selfishness of people. At how humans betray one another and ultimately themselves. It is a look at sacrifice because we are more scared of loneliness, of not belonging, than we are of anything else. It is a look at a toxic human who poisons those around him and the fallout of choices – those made deliberately and those made through a false sense of preservation. It is, unfortunately, a story that has been repeated many times throughout human history and will repeat many more times. It answers the ages old question: how did we get here? How do we see bad things happen and do nothing? Why do we choose ourselves over what is good, what is right?

– Frances Carden

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Frances Carden
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