Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship - Softcover

Caldwell, Gail

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0812979117 ISBN 13: 9780812979114

Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2011

Synopsis

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

They met over their dogs. Gail Caldwell and Caroline Knapp (author of Drinking: A Love Story) became best friends, talking about everything from their love of books and their shared history of a struggle with alcohol to their relationships with men. Walking the woods of New England and rowing on the Charles River, these two private, self-reliant women created an attachment more profound than either of them could ever have foreseen. Then, several years into this remarkable connection, Knapp was diagnosed with cancer. With her signature exquisite prose, Caldwell mines the deepest levels of devotion, and courage in this gorgeous memoir about treasuring a best friend, and coming of age in midlife. Let’s Take the Long Way Home is a celebration of the profound transformations that come from intimate connection—and it affirms, once again, why Gail Caldwell is recognized as one of our bravest and most honest literary voices.

About this title

Review

Amazon Best Books of the Month, August 2010: "The flaw is the thing we love." Of all the passages worthy of dog-earing (or highlighting) in Let's Take the Long Way Home (and there are many), this one is the most powerful wellspring. It captures the very thing we hope to find in friendship: a person who admires and cares for us not in spite of our flaws, but in acceptance of them, as part and parcel of who we are. For Gail Caldwell and Caroline Knapp--two intensely driven, talented writers who found in each other an uncannily similar share of life experiences and ambitions--loving the flaws became a cornerstone of their friendship. This is a beautiful story of the best things about best friends: shared rituals and private jokes, long walks (in this case, with their dearly loved dogs) and longer talks, confessions and discoveries. It would be wrong to say that their friendship ended with Caroline's unexpected death, because it so obviously lives and breathes in the rich and wonderful tapestry of stories told here. --Anne Bartholomew

From the Back Cover

Writers Gail Caldwell and Caroline Knapp met at a book function but became friends because of their dogs. They talked about everything from their shared struggle with alcohol to their love of books. They walked the woods of New England and rowed on the Charles River. From disparate backgrounds, but with emotional similarities, these two private, fiercely self-reliant women created an attachment more profound than either could ever have foreseen.

Their friendship helped them define the ordinary moments of life as the ones worth cherishing. But within a few years, Caroline Knapp was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0812979117
• ISBN 13: 9780812979114
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224