When to Indulge in a Threesome: Trilogies I’ve Loved
Recently Kaylin Walker, a statistics grad student, researched book and film trilogies and found that ultimately “movie trilogies get worse, losing favor with each film, while book trilogies secure higher ratings for book two and maintain them for book three.”
Her findings were based on a survey of Goodreads and IMDb ratings. While there’s enough data and graphs on her site to drag a yawn out of a confederate statue, as a lover of long books and, even better, sagas of three books that let me continue to follow my favorite characters, I began to think about what some of my favorite trilogies might be.
A trilogy is formally considered to be a group of three plays, novels, operas, etc., that, although individually able to stand alone, are closely related in theme. In the best, there are no cliffhangers at the end of each, as is often found in television’s season finales and summer’s blockbusters. Each book contains its own complete story. But each subsequent book retains central characters from the first and gives us the pleasure of knowing how their lives continue, what new challenges come to pass. My only complaint about trilogies, when I find a good one, is having to wait a year or more for the story to continue.
I surveyed my followers on Facebook about their favorite trilogies (excluding fantasy, science fiction, or traditional romance genres) and there were many I’ve not read or even heard about and many got added to my to-be-read list. As I commented to one poster: “I’ve got some readin’ to do!”
Here are five trilogies I’ve read that stand out in my mind. In each case, I was swept away by the stories, carried thoughts about the characters around in my mind for days and weeks as if they were personal friends. I was absorbed, captivated, and immersed. These grand sagas, when well researched are the way I like to gain a better understanding of history. Good writing and proper editing play a role and keep me glued through thousands of pages. I was in the book lovers’ zone and I recommend it!
Ken Follett: The Century Trilogy. Fall of Giants (2010), Winter of the World (2012), and Edge of Eternity (2014). Fall of Giants follows the fates of five interrelated families—American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh—as they move through the world-shaking dramas of WWI, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women’s suffrage. Winter of the World picks up where it left off, beginning with the rise of the Third Reich, through the Spanish Civil War and the two theaters of WWII, and on through the first devastating uses of the atomic bomb and the commencement of the Cold War. Edge of Eternity, the finale, covers one of the most tumultuous eras of all: the 1960s through the 1980s, encompassing civil rights, assassinations, Vietnam, the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis, presidential impeachment, revolution--and rock and roll. The amount of research that went into these three books boggles the mind, but it’s the way I like to get my history—wedded to the stories of individual characters caught up in events.
Kent Haruf: The Plainsong Trilogy. Plainsong (1999, a National Book Award finalist), Eventide (2004), and Benediction (2013). In Holt, a small town on Colorado’s flat eastern plains, two brothers take in a pregnant young teenager. The unadorned story of ordinary people dealing with death, life, love, and hate, and the ongoing complexities that enter all of our lives. His characters are people we know or have known, we care about them or despise them, we root for the courageous to overcome and for the villains to get their due. In Benediction, the story of a dying man’s life flows like a river, at times forceful, at times quietly as he reviews his days. These three books are about the blessings of ordinary lives, having others to love us and gather as a final passage is made. It’s about how people go on as best they can in spite of errors, regrets, and tragedy. It reminds us of the courage with which regular people pass through life. Haruf, who died in 2014) had a gift for revealing universal truths through his everyday characters—he cuts through to the heart of our concerns and makes us heard and recognized. This is one terrific writer!
Greg Iles: The Natchez Burning Trilogy. Natchez Burning (2014), The Bone Tree (2015), and Mississippi Blood (2017). This is an unusual trilogy because it is embedded in a series, but it meets the criteria of a continuing story that begins with the first book and wraps with the third. After his wife is murdered in Texas, Penn Cage moves with his young daughter back to Natchez, Mississippi, where he grew up, to be closer to his parents. In Natchez Burning, when Penn’s father—the much admired and revered doctor Tom Cage is shockingly charged with the murder of Viola Turner, a black woman who was his nurse many decades earlier, things get really hairy. As the trilogy continues, a manhunt is underway for Tom Cage, who has jumped bail. Penn’s fiancé, a hard-core journalist, launches a private investigation to scoop an important story that runs parallel and overlaps Tom’s. The final book wraps up the outcome of the murder charges again Penn Cage’s father. Some surprising new evidence emerges as the plot rides hell bent toward the trial’s end, the jury’s verdict, and the ultimate fates of Penn, Tom, Tom’s illegitimate son Lincoln, and the other key characters that have frequently played important roles in this series. Iles does deep research into every facet of Natchez’s history and crimes of the civil rights era that have gone unsolved, some of which have national security implications. He keeps the action rolling and just as you think you know the answers he throws a shocking fast ball that changes everything. If you enjoy a long read with a compelling story and wicked villains, you’ll find it all here and more. Loved it!
Cormac McCarthy: The Border Trilogy. All the Pretty Horses (1992, won both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award and was later turned into a feature film), The Crossing (1994), and Cities of the Plain (1998). The New York Times Book Review said, “A miracle in prose, an American original.” McCarthy chronicles the lives of two young men coming of age in the Southwest and Mexico, poised on the edge of a world about to change forever. The Border Trilogy has been called “a masterful elegy for the American frontier.”
Jane Smiley: The Last Hundred Years: A Family Saga. Some Luck (2014), Early Warning (2015), and Golden Age (2015). The trilogy tells the story of one Iowa farm family over five generations, beginning in 1920. A young couple, Walter and Rosanna Langdon, are beginning life together and eventually will have five children. This Pulitzer Prize-winning author uses these characters as a vehicle for telling the story of white, middle class flight from farms to college, to war and urban lives, and about those who remain behind to try to hold onto the land. Covering 100 years of history’s influences on one family through several generations is a massive undertaking and it weaves in a very large cast to keep track of, but I found myself carried right along and was glad that, for once, I didn’t have to wait years between books! # # #
I’d love to hear whether or not you like trilogies and why and if you’ve read any of these or have other favorites. Winter is coming and it’s time to curl up on the couch on a snowy day with a huge volume and prepare to enter another world!