5 books to read if you loved East of Eden

William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! follows Thomas Sutpen, a poor young man who arrives in Mississippi determined to build a powerful family and establish a dynasty. His ambitions eventually unravel through secrets surrounding his past, his relationships with his children and the divisions within the family he has created.

The novel shares East of Eden’s interest in families shaped by the ambitions and failures of their patriarchs. Both books also draw on biblical stories to examine destructive relationships between parents, children and siblings. Sutpen’s determination to create a legacy has consequences for his descendants, just as the actions of the Trask family reverberate through successive generations.

Sibling conflict is another important connection. In both novels, family relationships are complicated by rivalry, resentment and the unequal expectations placed on different children. Faulkner’s novel is also concerned with the stories people construct around their families and the difficulty of separating personal history from the version of that history passed down to others.

Toni Morrison’s Sula offers a particularly interesting companion to East of Eden through its central female character. The novel follows the friendship between Sula Peace and Nel Wright, beginning with their childhood and continuing into adulthood in the Black community of the Bottom in Ohio.

Sula grows into a woman who rejects many of the expectations placed on her by her family and community. Her choices, relationships and refusal to conform lead those around her to regard her as dangerous and immoral. Morrison uses that reaction to examine the difference between an individual’s choices and the moral judgements imposed by a community.

That makes Sula an interesting comparison with Cathy Ames, whose behaviour in East of Eden also challenges conventional ideas about femininity, morality and social expectations. The two characters are very different, and Morrison’s novel is concerned with race, female friendship and community in ways that Steinbeck’s novel is not. But both books ask what happens when a woman refuses to accept the role others have created for her, and how the people around her respond when they cannot easily categorise her.

Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies examines a marriage over 24 years, dividing the novel into two parts that offer radically different views of the same relationship. The first half is told from the perspective of Lotto, a charismatic man whose understanding of his marriage and his wife, Mathilde, shapes the reader’s initial view. The second half shifts to Mathilde, revealing a history and inner life that Lotto has never fully understood.

The novel’s interest in the difference between appearance and reality makes it a useful choice for readers fascinated by Cathy Ames. Like Cathy, Mathilde complicates the image other people have of her, although the two characters are very different and Groff’s novel is primarily concerned with marriage, identity and the limitations of one person’s perspective on another.

Mathilde is intelligent, calculating and fiercely protective of the life she has built. Her actions also raise questions about how much control one person can exert within a relationship while remaining hidden from the person closest to them. For readers drawn to the secrecy and moral ambiguity surrounding Cathy in East of Eden, Groff’s novel offers another story in which a woman’s private motivations fundamentally alter the way her character is understood.

Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights centres on the turbulent relationship between Catherine Earnshaw, Heathcliff and Edgar Linton. Their choices create conflicts that extend beyond the original generation, affecting their families and the children who come after them.

Like East of Eden, the novel explores the way love, resentment and family loyalty can become difficult to separate. Catherine’s decision to marry Edgar rather than Heathcliff sets in motion a series of consequences that affect both families, while Heathcliff turns his grief and anger into a sustained campaign of revenge. His actions ultimately draw a younger generation into conflicts they did not create.

The comparison with Cathy Ames is also useful, although the characters are fundamentally different. Catherine Earnshaw is not defined by the same coldness or manipulation as Cathy, but both women make choices that have profound consequences for the people around them. Wuthering Heights shares with East of Eden an interest in relationships that resist simple definitions of love or hatred, as well as the lasting effects of choices made within one generation.

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