Novels about betrayal, but not romantic/sexual affairs

March 30, 2016 2:21 PM

Can you recommend novels in which one character betraying another is a significant plot point but that betrayal is not an affair? We are so used to thinking of betrayal in that particular setting, but I'd like to read stories about other types of betrayals.
posted by Alluring Mouthbreather to Media & Arts (33 answers total)

pretty much anything by le carre.
posted by andrewcooke at 2:26 PM on March 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

A Separate Peace
posted by veery at 2:32 PM on March 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

Henry IV, Part 2. Hal (now King Henry V) betrays his former friend Falstaff, telling him "I know thee not, old man" and banishing him from the King's presence. Here's a summary of the plot point.
posted by _Silky_ at 2:40 PM on March 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

Betrayal is a significant aspect of Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch.
posted by ocherdraco at 2:45 PM on March 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

Atonement, by Ian McEwan. It's astonishing.
posted by mochapickle at 2:47 PM on March 30, 2016 [7 favorites]

In the novel The Bonfire of the Vanities, just about every character betrays every other character in large and small ways.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 2:52 PM on March 30, 2016

Count of Monte Cristo
posted by Sassyfras at 2:52 PM on March 30, 2016 [6 favorites]

His Majesty's Dragon has a supporting character betraying another in an exciting way.
posted by fingersandtoes at 2:54 PM on March 30, 2016

Most of K.J. Parker (Tom Holt)'s oeuvre, including particularly The Company and the Engineer Trilogy.
posted by Etrigan at 2:56 PM on March 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

TVTropes: "Face-Heel Turn, Literature"
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 2:57 PM on March 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, by Anthony Marra.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 2:59 PM on March 30, 2016

Mr Norris Changes Trains, Christopher Isherwood.
posted by tardigrade at 3:18 PM on March 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

Seconding Le Carre and Atonement.

There's an important non-sexual double-cross in Charles Dickens' Bleak House (although, it being a long novel, it will take some time to get there...). There are yet more driving the plots of Great Expectations (Miss Havisham's backstory) and Little Dorrit (Mrs. Clennam and the Dorrits).

Katherine McMahon's historical novel After Mary, set among seventeenth-century English Catholics, is all about the betrayals.

Some very complex examples in China Mieville's Iron Council.
posted by thomas j wise at 3:24 PM on March 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

Betrayals by Charles Palliser
posted by juv3nal at 4:01 PM on March 30, 2016

It kind of is and kind of isn't what you're talking about, but you can never go wrong reading Jane Eyre.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 4:06 PM on March 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

+1 Atonement
posted by St. Peepsburg at 4:08 PM on March 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

Came in here to say Atonement, saw it was said, will instead say Martin Amis' Money.
posted by notyou at 4:17 PM on March 30, 2016

The Traitor's Wife, A novel, by Allison Pataki. Novelization of the Benedict Arnold and his wife

There must be one by Anthony Trollope, but I can't tell you which would be best.

Here is a lead: The Judas kiss: Treason and betrayal in six modern Irish novels
by Gerry Smyth
posted by SemiSalt at 4:40 PM on March 30, 2016

A Song of Ice and Fire (AKA the Game of Thrones series) has many and more.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 4:41 PM on March 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

In the YA novel Out Of My Mind, the protagonist is terribly betrayed by one of her teachers near the end. It hurts to remember.
posted by Flannery Culp at 4:48 PM on March 30, 2016

The Tenth Justice by Brad Meltzer
posted by SisterHavana at 5:08 PM on March 30, 2016

The Analyst by John Katzenbach
posted by invisible ink at 6:11 PM on March 30, 2016

The Betrayers by David Bezmozgis
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John Le Carre
I Claudius by Robert Graves
The Once and Future King by T.H. White
posted by brookeb at 6:57 PM on March 30, 2016

Sarah Waters, Fingersmith.
posted by yarntheory at 7:11 PM on March 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

The Company - A Novel of the CIA by Robert Littell
posted by mmascolino at 7:12 PM on March 30, 2016

So Much Water, So Close to Home is a menacing short story by Raymond Carver. The story has at its core a wife's sense of moral betrayal by her husband. He goes fishing with some mates and whilst out in the remotes, the group discovers a woman's murdered body in the river. Rather than abandon their trip and report the death, they simply move the body out of the way and keep fishing for the rest of the weekend. She is suspicious of the version of events he provides. At worst, he's been part of the murder scenario, but even the best case - that he wasn't part of the murder plot, but was untroubled enough, lacking in empathy enough perhaps, to be able to continue to fish and enjoy his mates' weekend. To her, his moral disinterest [not uninterest] in the victim's suffering and lack of justice cannot be reconciled in her relationship with him. She finds identification with the victim. The betrayal is a deeply nuanced one: his sense of herself as his wife, she comes to realise, is a bodily one, not an intimate, safe identification with her personhood.

Maybe you could have a short prose break betwixt the other tomes mentioned here?

And, perhaps you could give [the wonderful Australian songwriter and performer] Paul Kelly's 'Everything's Turning To White' - a song that re-crafts this story, a listen. I have never gotten it out of my head and the song even gives me the chills.
posted by honey-barbara at 7:59 PM on March 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

I just saw the movie Burnt and the best part of it was a shocking betrayal.
posted by emd3737 at 4:42 AM on March 31, 2016

Mastiff by Tamora Pierce.
posted by LoonyLovegood at 5:22 AM on March 31, 2016

Many of Henry James's novels involve betrayal of one form or another; often this may involve a prior affair but the betrayal itself does not actually take the form of an affair (Portrait of a Lady), or the affair does not involve the betrayer cheating on their romantic partner ( Ambassadors, Wings of the Dove).

There are also significant betrayals in Edith Wharton's House of Mirth.
posted by praemunire at 5:35 AM on March 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
posted by LauraJ at 11:05 AM on March 31, 2016

Lots of horrible betrayals and all kinds of double crossing in Charles Palliser's The Quincunx. To say more would betray (yes!) the extremely intricate plot.
posted by low_horrible_immoral at 2:36 AM on April 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

The Traitor Baru Cormorant, Seth Dickinson

(I believe the UK title is just The Traitor, in case that's helpful.)
posted by McCoy Pauley at 5:04 AM on April 1, 2016

The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck
posted by 1smartcookie at 9:57 AM on April 1, 2016