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A bittersweet story of two woman who shared life’s joys and sorrows

This is a biography of a very special friendship between the author and Caroline Knapp. She begins this book by saying, “ I had a friend and we shared everything, and then she died and we shared that too.”

Let’s Take the Long Way Home;

A Memoir of Friendship

By Gail Caldwell

Random House Pub

This is a biography of a very special friendship between the author and Caroline Knapp. She begins this book by saying, “ I had a friend and we shared everything, and then she died and we shared that too.”

There are few of us who have not lost a friend to cancer, and not many of us have the ability to write the memoir, and do that friendship justice. Here is the meeting, the discovery of shared interests, growing into dependence and great fun, shared laughter and then, illness. How it began and how it came to an end.

Gail Caldwell is a gifted writer, and a Pulitzer Prize winner. These two women met because they were both journalists for large American newspapers attending the same social events. They really came together because they both loved dogs. If a book about a special friendship doesn’t snag you then the one about their rabid addiction to their four legged friends may. Gail has a samoyed and Caroline had a shepherd mix dog.

Caroline had just written a very successful book, about her time as a drunk, and was (ironically) the toast of the town. Gail, more of an introvert, but also a recovering alcoholic, spent her social time in a warm jacket with a hunk of dried liver in the pocket, at the dog park.

Gail was the older of the two, had suffered polio as a child, and had become a swimmer to keep herself active. Caroline was an accomplished rower, so they trained in each others skills. Gail had given up on men, but Caroline had a man friend who the girls called “the last best boyfriend in America.”

It would be easy to think that this friendship was “over the top” and rather unnatural, but women often have close girl-girl friendships, sometimes a hangover from School days. The daily phone call, the shared jokes and laughter, the easy way of disagreeing that doesn’t lead to all out war; these are not rare at all among women.

At one point in the book, Gail says, “Men don’t really understand women’s friendships, do they?” Her friend replies, “ Oh God, no and we must never tell them.” These are not women that hate men at all, they are just very fortunate to have found a kindred spirit of a non-sexual nature.

The doggie part of the book, will only be appreciated by us doggie types. When Gail’s dog is attacked at the doggie park by a pair of pit bulls, we suffer along with her.

This is not really a sad book. But the author takes us through the mourning for her friend with astute understanding.

“They don’t tell you in the instruction books about grieving that we only fret about the living. We grieve for the dead,” she says, “but we don’t worry about them anymore.”

This is a bittersweet memory, and a fine read.

Peggy Freeman is a freelance writer living in Red Deer.