Gail Cadwell
publisher
Random House
format
Hardcover
pages
208
Frank Delaney
The Flight of Gemma Hardy
Margot Livesey
American Dervish
Ayad Akhtar
Time and Again
Jack Finney
We are so excited that Gail Caldwell's poignant memoir, LET'S TAKE THE LONG WAY HOME, will now be available; publication date is August 10th. We read this book last fall in galley form, and then last May, Gail was with us at the Riverside Yacht Club for a moving and inspired luncheon. Not only did Gail discuss this book with us and share her feelings about the many layers of her memoir, but all of the guests bonded with Gail by sharing pictures of their own beloved dogs. You can watch the video of this event here. This is a very special and rare book in our lives, and we know that you'll be as touched by Gail's poetry as we were.
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“It’s an old, old story: I had a friend and we shared everything, and
then she died and so we shared that, too.”
So begins this gorgeous memoir by Pulitzer Prize winner Gail Caldwell, a
testament to the power of friendship, a story of how an extraordinary
bond between two women can illuminate the loneliest, funniest, hardest
moments in life, including the final and ultimate challenge.
They met over their dogs. Both writers, Gail Caldwell and Caroline
Knapp, author of Drinking: A Love Story, became best friends, talking
about everything from their shared history of a struggle with alcohol,
to their relationships with men and colleagues, to their love of books.
They walked the woods of New England and rowed on the Charles River, and
the miles they logged on land and water became a measure of the
interior ground they covered. From disparate backgrounds but with
striking emotional similarities, these two private, fiercely
self-reliant women created an attachment more profound than either of
them could ever have foreseen.
The friendship helped them define the ordinary moments of life as the
ones worth cherishing. Then, several years into this remarkable
connection, Knapp was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.
With her signature exquisite prose, Caldwell mines the deepest levels of
devotion and grief in this moving memoir about treasuring and losing a
best friend. Let’s Take the Long Way Home is a celebration of life and
of the 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.
Gail Caldwell is the former chief book critic for The Boston Globe, where she was a staff writer and critic for more than twenty years. In 2001, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. She is also the author of A Strong West Wind, a memoir of her native Texas. Caldwell lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Beyond the book
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Caldwell (A Strong West Wind) has managed to do the inexpressible in this quiet, fierce work: create a memorable offering of love to her best friend, Caroline Knapp, the writer (Drinking: A Love Story) who died of lung cancer at age 42 in 2002. The two met in the mid-1990s: "Finding Caroline was like placing a personal ad for an imaginary friend, then having her show up at your door funnier and better than you had conceived." Both single, writers (Caldwell was then book critic for the Boston Globe), and living alone in the Cambridge area, the two women bonded over their dog runs in Fresh Pond Reservoir, traded lessons in rowing (Knapp's sport) and swimming (Caldwell's), and shared stories, clothes, and general life support as best friends. Moreover, both had stopped drinking at age 33 (Caldwell was eight years older than her friend); both had survived early traumas (Caldwell had had polio as a child; Knapp had suffered anorexia). Their attachment to each other was deeply, mutually satisfying, as Caldwell describes: "Caroline and I coaxed each other into the light." Yet Knapp's health began to falter in March 2002, with stagefour lung cancer diagnosed; by June she had died. Caldwell is unflinching in depicting her friend's last days, although her own grief nearly undid her; she writes of this desolating time with tremendously moving grace.
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Review
"There are as many shadings to our griefs as there are lost loves to grieve over. Friendship, as Gail Caldwell's memoir gracefully testifies, asks a special, liberating eloquence."—Richard Ford
"An exquisite testament to the bittersweet depths of love and loss. If you've ever had a soul mate, whether human or canine, this book was written for you. If you haven't, this honest and liberating memoir will help you find one."—Patricia B. McConnell, author of For the Love of a Dog: Understanding Emotions in You and Your Best Friend
"Out of a great loss, Gail Caldwell has fashioned a great gift: an intimate memoir that somehow contains everything that really matters about life. Lucid, elegant, passionate, wise, and enormously moving—a book of rare and memorable beauty."—Joan Wickersham, author of The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order
"Caldwell has managed to do the inexpressible in this quiet, fierce work: create a memorable offering of love to her best friend, Caroline Knapp, the writer who died of lung cancer at age 42 in 2002. Caldwell is unflinching in depicting her friend's last days, although her own grief nearly undid her; she writes of this desolating time with tremendously moving grace."—Publishers Weekly & Pick of the Week
"Poignant and powerful...Caldwell writes with deep feeling, but without sentimentality, about [a] life-altering friendship." ¯Kirkus Reviews, starred review