Male friendship doesn't always get the respect it deserves. Inspired by the second installment in the Obama/Biden Mysteries, I've put together a collection of witty bromances that everyone should be able to enjoy.
First, Hope Rides Again by Andrew Shaffer. Joe Biden is contemplating a run for the Presidency, but he's decided to make a detour after his book tour to attend a development conference hosted by his good buddy, Obama. Of course, this is in Chicago on St. Patrick's Day, so things are a little chaotic even before Obama's phone gets stolen. With a guest appearance by a certain former mayor, this is another romp with two guys who really like each other, even if they feel weird saying it.
Fun with the British police procedural is to be found with Bill James' Harpur and Iles Mysteries. Colin Harpur, Desmond Iles, and their colleagues in a Yorkshire city seem out to prove that bloody mayhem should be exclusively the right of the police and anyone who gets in the way of said mayhem (crooks, lawyers, Internal Affairs) is fair game. No one is clean in these trenchantly funny, gritty-as-asphalt thrill rides.
Michael Chabon wrote a delightful book about two dissipated, former, literary hotshots titled Wonder Boys. Grady Tripp, an author, and Terry Crabtree, his agent and best friend, both found early success, but people are starting to think they were just so many flashes in the pan. Over an eventful weekend, Grady manages to blow up two marriages, alienate his best students, and lose his latest, never-ending manuscript. He also saves a student's life and may even see his way to getting his life back on track, with Terry along for the ride.
War of the Encyclopaedists by Christopher Gerald Robinson and Kevin Kovite follows best buddies Mickey and Halifax after they leave college, Mickey to Baghdad with the National Guard and Halifax to grad school. Both are in for some disillusionment, but keep track of each other by editing a Wikipedia page about themselves. As dark as this could have been and sometimes is, there's plenty of humor to buoy this tale along as its initially lost characters come into true adulthood.
Simon Rich skewers high school and its group dynamics in Elliot Allagash. Seymour Herson, at the bottom of the pecking order of his private school, is befriended by the obscenely rich title character. Elliot makes Seymour into the king of the school by all means necessary not out of any altruism, but to keep himself amused. Seymour is a bit passive next to the energetic and scheming Elliot, but they have what passes for friendship in secondary school. Rich also makes a point about the corrupting element of too much money in this fast-paced whipsaw of the one percent.
Have more bromances? Tell us about them in the comments.
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