Six Degrees of Separation is a meme hosted by Kate over at Books Are My Favourite and Best. It works like this: each month a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six others to form a chain. A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the titles on the list, only to the one next to it in the chain.
This month we’re starting with a wild card – the last book in November’s Six Degrees for those of us who took part. Mine was Thomas Pynchon’s Shadow Ticket, chosen as a link to Salinger, another famously reclusive author.
I’ve not read Shadow Ticket, although its blurb is attractive, having given up several Pynchons, the first of which was Gravity’s Rainbow.
Leading me to The Rainbow by D H Lawrence, another author I have trouble with.
When I visited New Mexico, years ago, I was surprised to find that Lawrence had lived in Taos, the setting for Jen Beagin’s Pretend I’m Dead, narrated by a cleaner.
The narrator of Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister the Serial Killer puts her excellent cleaning skills to use clearing up after her sibling’s crimes.
I’m linking by title to Lily Tuck’s Sisters about a wife’s obsession with her husband’s ex.
In her novel, Tuck acknowledges her debt to Daphne du Maurier with a nod to Rebecca.
This month’s Six Degrees has taken me from a novel I’m unlikely to read despite its alluring blurb to a modern classic. Part of the fun of this meme is comparing the very different routes other bloggers take from each month’s starting point. If you’re interested, you can follow it on Twitter with the hashtag #6Degrees, check out the links over at Kate’s blog or perhaps even join in.
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I love Rebecca so will have to look for the Lily Tuck book! Great chain.
Thank you. Sisters is written in a very different style but essentially it’s a reworking of Rebecca. I loved it!
The Oyinkan Braithwaite was an unexpected connection. As always you come up with something unusual Susan.
Which may say something about the way my mind works! Thanks, Karen.
Wonderful chain as always, Susan. For a change there are a couple on your list I’ve read (or not read, rather)–I’ve read and loved Rebecca so like Helen will have to look up Sisters. Then there’s The Rainbow which I attempted to read I think just around the time I’d start university, but didn’t get very far into. I think my copy from then is still around somewhere in the shelves. I really liked how you linked it to Pretend I’m Dead, though!
Thanks, Mallika! The Beagin connection is an odd one which just popped into my head in the way that seems to happen with Six Degrees.
Oh, well done! These chains that all start at different places are just fascinating… and in this case, DEADLY!
Thank you! It took me a little while to get going this month.
Fun links! I hae only read Rebecca, which I enjoyed a lot, and The Crying of Lot 49 by Pynchon. I want to try more by him.
Here is my chain: https://wordsandpeace.com/2026/01/03/six-degrees-of-separation-ordinals/
Thank you. I’m not sure I’ll ever make it to the end of a Pynchon!
Put me down as another reader who is now going to look out for Sisters!
Oh, that’s great!
Very good chain. FYI–I had trouble with Mornings in Mexico by DH Lawrence. He went to Taos when he went to Mexico. https://hopewellslibraryoflife.wordpress.com/2024/09/26/classics-club-spin-38-failure-mornings-in-mexico-by-d-h-lawrence/ Ladies of the Canyon mentions him as a guest–it is linked in the review I just gave you [only read it if you are interested]
That’s great! Thanks.
Interwsting links as ever. Talking about authors with whom you have trouble, my sticking point is Oyinkan Braithwaite. I found My Sister … a little on the distasteful side.
It was certainly very dark humour.