"The only story I will ever be able to tell": Nonsexual Erotics of Friendship in Donna Tartt's The Secret History and Tana French's The Likeness

This article argues that erotic yet nonsexual friendships depicted in Donna Tartt's The Secret History (1992) and Tana French's The Likeness (2008) may serve as a queer alternative to compulsory sexuality, amatonormativity, and coupledom. The two novels focus on close and insular groups of friends who envision their futures as utopian communities; however, their plans are derailed when some members of the groups become disloyal or decide to leave. Drawing on concepts of "friendship as a way of life" (Foucault 1997), queer temporality (), and Audre Lorde's erotics ([1984] 2007), this article analyzes the tensions between the desire for an alternative life in a friend community and normative expectations about maturity and (re)productive life path that pull the groups apart. The article claims that the liberatory promise of these queer, erotic friendships is curtailed by the external and internal normative pressures to grow up and move on, and by the fact that these communities depend on the characters' whiteness and economic privilege.