By CJ Trent
Photo Courtesy of www.tower.com
Gail Caldwell’s beautifully written book about her best friend Caroline Knapp begins this way:
“It’s an old, old story: I had a friend and we shared everything, and then she died and so we shared that, too.”
Gail and Caroline had a lot in common; both writers, single women, active dog owners and recovering alcoholics, they lived in the same small New England town and met at a party. Somewhat to the surprise of both intensely private women, they became best friends and each other’s mainstay, sharing everything, as Caldwell writes, including Caroline’s early death from cancer. The book is at once a joyous celebration of friendship and a moving chronicle of grieving, of the arduous process of letting go and learning to live without someone you’ve loved.
I came to this book because I read a review of it in BARK magazine, and the description of the two dog-loving women and their friendship struck a chord with me, being a long-time, hardcore dog lover myself. I saw myself in some of Caldwell’s musings about preferring dogs and dog people over many social situations, and I could relate to her lyrical descriptions of long woods walks and the sheer joy of watching a dog run, flat out, all for the joy of running. It can be hard to find other humans who are so besotted with their dogs – making her loss of Caroline (known to us crazy dog folks as the author of the best-selling book PACK OF ONE) even more poignant.
The surprise of the book, to me, was reading something new about grieving and loss, having read my way through countless books on the topic many years ago. “Grief is what tells you who you are alone” Caldwell writes early on, and later says of her own journey through the literature of loss “Everything about death is a cliché until you’re in it.” The simple truth of these words stayed with me long after I finished the book and are examples of the caliber of the writing throughout, and why I loved this book so much.
CJ Trent works @ the College Store and her best friend on campus is Maggie the Border Collie.