Sentence:  Others who wrote of low characters and low life included Thomas Bangs Thorpe , creator of the Big Bear of Arkansas and Tom Owen , the Bee-Hunter ; Johnson Jones Hooper , whose character Simon Suggs bears a <WSD>close</WSD> kinship to Flem Snopes in both his willingness to take cruel advantage of all and sundry and the sharpness with which he habitually carried out his will ; and George Washington Harris , whose Tennessee hillbilly character Sut Lovingood perpetrated more unmalicious mischief and more unintended pain than any other character in literature . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  close in relevance or relationship