Summary: Caldwell reflects on her own coming-of-age in midlife, as she learns to open herself to the power and healing of sharing her life with a best friend. Traces the author's close friendship with the late fellow writer Caroline Knapp, describing their shared experiences with sobriety, a love of dogs, and Caroline's battle with cancer.
Booklist Reviews
Caldwell, a Pulitzer Prize–winning book critic, reflected on her Texas heritage and literary ardor in her first gorgeously crafted memoir, A Strong West Wind (2006). Her second, a gripping mix of confession, elegy, and resolve, focuses on Caldwell's profound friendship with sister writer Caroline Knapp. One would expect the two independent women to have met in literary circles in the 1990s: both lived in Cambridge, both wrote for newspapers—Caldwell reviewing books for the Boston Globe, Knapp writing a column for an alternative paper. Instead it was their love for dogs (Clementine, Caldwell's beloved Samoyed, darn near steals the show), passion for the water (Caldwell as a swimmer, Knapp as a rower), and struggles with alcoholism that brought them together. Knapp confronted her addiction in Drinking: A Love Story (1996). Caldwell kept her trials to herself until now. Interweaving her vivid memories of Knapp, who died unexpectedly at age 42 in 2001, with tales sweet and harrowing of her own efforts to overcome fear and embrace life, Caldwell creates an adroitly distilled memoir of trust, affinity, and love. Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.
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