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Small Circl Friend
film 1st edition Magnum 1980 paperback, fine In stock shipped from our UK warehouse
204 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1980
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April 21, 2021
A SMALL CIRCLE OF FRIENDS was a paperback novelization by Ron DeChristoforo, from a screenplay by Ezra Sacks of a United Artists movie that came out in 1980. The book was published by Pocket Books in April 1980. The cover has the look of a romance novel, with the image in a circle reminiscent of the Harlequin Presents line. It's not a romance per se, although it does involve the relationship between two male best friends and the woman they both love, and it has somewhat of a happy ending for the woman and one of the men. One of the advantages the story has being in the general "fiction" category at that time (instead of the "romance" genre) is that the plot was able to include elements such as a lesbian couple and a (closed-door) threesome that would have been forbidden in a mainstream romance novel back then. It was also allowed to be explicitly political, topical, relevant and even radical, in a way that most romance novels weren't permitted to be.
Although the story begins and ends in the then-present day, most of the story takes place in the late 1960s and early 1970s as Nick and Leo are attending Harvard and encounter Radcliffe student Jessica. The turbulence of the times is reflected in the drama, as political events affect their lives (such as the draft and protests) and the characters and their friends change over time due to these events. At first I thought this story was going to be a corny baby-boomer nostalgia trip, and while there is a bit of that here and there, it nonetheless has a universal appeal which any age group can probably relate to when thinking about their younger days.
There are some melodramatic moments (like the bicycle chase that opens the novel) -- reflecting the visual, crowd-pleasing requirements of cinema -- that sometimes appear unrealistic and contrived on the printed page. I haven't seen the movie on which the novelization is based, so I can't compare the two, but I think the author did a good job of adding in little descriptive details and observations. (For example, on page 36, we read: "His was the first generation able to fantasize freely about the possibilities of roaming the fourth, fifth, and sixth dimensions. If your parents were really getting on your case, simply whiff them off to Nebula.") So despite my initial assumptions, I ended up enjoying this book more than I thought I would. It's a thin, 204-page novel and should be a quick read for most people. I read the first 46 pages one day, and then finished the book another day (a week later). Now I'd like to see the movie, too. I rate the novel 3.5 (out of 5) stars.
Although the story begins and ends in the then-present day, most of the story takes place in the late 1960s and early 1970s as Nick and Leo are attending Harvard and encounter Radcliffe student Jessica. The turbulence of the times is reflected in the drama, as political events affect their lives (such as the draft and protests) and the characters and their friends change over time due to these events. At first I thought this story was going to be a corny baby-boomer nostalgia trip, and while there is a bit of that here and there, it nonetheless has a universal appeal which any age group can probably relate to when thinking about their younger days.
There are some melodramatic moments (like the bicycle chase that opens the novel) -- reflecting the visual, crowd-pleasing requirements of cinema -- that sometimes appear unrealistic and contrived on the printed page. I haven't seen the movie on which the novelization is based, so I can't compare the two, but I think the author did a good job of adding in little descriptive details and observations. (For example, on page 36, we read: "His was the first generation able to fantasize freely about the possibilities of roaming the fourth, fifth, and sixth dimensions. If your parents were really getting on your case, simply whiff them off to Nebula.") So despite my initial assumptions, I ended up enjoying this book more than I thought I would. It's a thin, 204-page novel and should be a quick read for most people. I read the first 46 pages one day, and then finished the book another day (a week later). Now I'd like to see the movie, too. I rate the novel 3.5 (out of 5) stars.
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