Malcolm and Muhammad, Zora and Langston, Adams and Jefferson, and More Stories of Fraught Friendships
Friendships can be complicated. They can be some of the most sustaining relationships in your life, but sometimes friendships hit a bump in the road...or crash altogether. Sometimes a friend becomes a rival or, worse, a foe. The book list below, kicked off by Blood Brothers which profiles the turbulent friendship between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X (and adapted into a documentary streaming on Netflix beginning September 9), highlights high-profile friendships with rifts, ruptures, and, in some cases, implosions.
Blood Brothers: The Fatal Friendship Between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X by Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith
Draws on previously untapped sources to illuminate the secret friendship and disastrous estrangement between Cassius Clay and Malcolm X, sharing insights into Malcolm's alleged role in shaping Clay's double life as a patriotic athlete and Islamic reformer.
Buckley and Mailer: The Difficult Friendship That Shaped the Sixties by Kevin M. Schultz
This engaging narrative examines the complicated relationship between two bestselling authors of the turbulent Sixties: liberal Norman Mailer and conservative William F. Buckley. Drawing on diaries, journals, and correspondence between the two men, the book describes their public debates, in person and in their writing, about major issues of the Sixties, such as feminism, civil rights, and the Vietnam War, and their close friendship behind the scenes of protest marches and political alliances.
The Feud: Vladimir Nabokov, Edmund Wilson, and the End of a Beautiful Friendship by Alex Beam
Traces the estrangement between intimate friends and literary colleagues Edmund Wilson and Vladimir Nabokov, describing their political differences and escalating disagreements about Nabokov's translation of Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin." The Feud is the deliciously ironic (and sad) tale of how two literary giants destroyed their friendship in a fit of mutual pique and egomania.
Zora and Langston: A Story of Friendship and Betrayal by Yuval Taylor
Traces the story of the literary friendship of Harlem Renaissance figures Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes, tracing their folklore-collecting journeys through the 1920s South, their influential creative collaborations and their passionate but mysterious falling out.
Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson by Gordon S. Wood
A dual portrait of the second and third presidents shares insights into their disparate backgrounds, the partnership decisions that helped establish America's foundation and the unexpected ways their subsequent falling out and reconciliation corrected the course of a young republic.
Foursome: Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O'Keeffe, Paul Strand, Rebecca Salsbury by Carolyn Burke
A captivating, spirited account of the intense relationship among four artists whose strong personalities, passionate feelings, and aesthetic ideals drew them together, pulled them apart, and profoundly influenced the very shape of twentieth-century art.
Come Together: Lennon and McCartney in the Seventies by Richard White
Come Together offers an intriguing new perspective on the personal relationship and solo careers of John Lennon and Paul McCartney in the decade following the disbanding of the Beatles. Set mainly in Los Angeles, New York City and New Orleans, the book explores their separate paths, reconciliation and the ever-present possibility of a renewed creative partnership.
Art of Rivalry: Four Friendships, Betrayals, and Breakthroughs in Modern Art by Sebastian Smee
Picasso & Matisse. Manet & Degas. Pollack & de Kooning. Lucian Freud & Francis Bacon. This is the story of four pairs of artists—each linked by friendship and a spirit of competitiveness. Taken together, they form an impressive lineage stretching across more than 150 years. But in each case, these relationships had a flashpoint, a damaging psychological event that seemed to mark both an end and a new beginning, a break that led onto new creative innovations.
Gehrig and the Babe: The Friendship and the Feud by Tony Castro
Much has been written about Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth as teammates, but their relationship away from the field is rarely, if ever, explored. In Gehrig and the Babe, Tony Castro portrays Ruth and Gehrig for what they were: American icons who were remarkably different men. For the first time, readers will learn about a friendship driven apart, an enduring feud which wove its way in and out of their Yankees glory years and chilled their interactions until July 4, 1939—Lou Gehrig Day at Yankee Stadium—when Gehrig's famous farewell address thawed out their stone silence.