The great third wheels of literature

Annaleese Jochems was born in 1994 and grew up in the far north of New Zealand. She won the 2016 Adam Prize from the International Institute of Modern Letters and the 2018 Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction for Baby, which is her first book.

At CrimeReads Jochems tagged some of the great third wheels of fiction, including:

Mildred Pierce, by James M. Cain

Mildred loves her extravagant daughter Veda more than anything. But instead of loving her mother, Veda loves glamour and social prestige, and the men who have the capacity to give them to her. For Veda, any money you have to work for is evidence not of achievement, but of a lack of class and charisma.

Unfortunately for both women the men around them are broke losers. In Decreation, the book I mentioned in the introduction, Anne Carson goes on to say that “Jealousy is a dance in which everybody moves because one of them is always extra—three people trying to sit on two chairs.” In this novel, the drama is not just about who gets to sit on the chairs, but who has to pay for them.

Read about another entry on the list.

Mildred Pierce is among Carol Goodman's top ten books that explore the fears & ambivalences of motherhood, Patricia Abbott's five favorite novels about mothers and daughters, and Ester Bloom's ten favorite fictional feminists.

--Marshal Zeringue