"This creates its own problem when all your friends have known you for the same length of time, like how farmers need to practice crop rotation or else they’ll wear out the soil."
It’s a really really good time in this world for a sympathetic portrayal of just such a character, and you’re a little bit of a miracle worker for getting us so close to her without getting us scratched, like we readers are divers in a shark cage, but minus the need for bravery and special equipment.
Incidentally, I’m re-reading Women’s Hotel, and it’s still an excellent time in this world for Katherine and Pauline and Ruth and Stephen and the rest. Somehow they comfort and strengthen me a lot, by showing that sometimes being a human is like _this_, flavors and ways of being that are barely ever explored in the Joseph Campbell big-protagonist stories.
I will have to think about charm. I don’t trust my own. It feels dishonest to try to impress someone I want to impress. I can only meet people when we’re washed up or in over our heads together, and it seems I can only use charm as a sort of good deed for cheering up a fellow down-and-out person. One day I do hope to have a friend who drives the big bus, just think of it!
All of which to say, thanks for the hors d’oeuvre and I can’t wait for more Barbara!
As a 60-something woman who has utterly failed to make any new friends since divorcing 5 years ago, I'm going to assume you wrote this book just for me and plan to enjoy every minute of reading it.
Barbara's voice sounds very much like a former friend of mine. (In our case, it was clear that we broke up because she was a homophobic Calvinist and I was becoming ever more gay, but it was oddly amicable for all that.) I will have to get this book because I miss her astringent wit.
In the first years of my own family estrangement, I did much more friend-courtship, which was coming from a place of "Will you be my mommy?" Now it happens more naturally and my problem is keeping up with people rather than seeking them out.
It’s a really really good time in this world for a sympathetic portrayal of just such a character, and you’re a little bit of a miracle worker for getting us so close to her without getting us scratched, like we readers are divers in a shark cage, but minus the need for bravery and special equipment.
Incidentally, I’m re-reading Women’s Hotel, and it’s still an excellent time in this world for Katherine and Pauline and Ruth and Stephen and the rest. Somehow they comfort and strengthen me a lot, by showing that sometimes being a human is like _this_, flavors and ways of being that are barely ever explored in the Joseph Campbell big-protagonist stories.
I will have to think about charm. I don’t trust my own. It feels dishonest to try to impress someone I want to impress. I can only meet people when we’re washed up or in over our heads together, and it seems I can only use charm as a sort of good deed for cheering up a fellow down-and-out person. One day I do hope to have a friend who drives the big bus, just think of it!
All of which to say, thanks for the hors d’oeuvre and I can’t wait for more Barbara!
this comment meant a great deal to me to read. thank you very much for it
As a 60-something woman who has utterly failed to make any new friends since divorcing 5 years ago, I'm going to assume you wrote this book just for me and plan to enjoy every minute of reading it.
Barbara's voice sounds very much like a former friend of mine. (In our case, it was clear that we broke up because she was a homophobic Calvinist and I was becoming ever more gay, but it was oddly amicable for all that.) I will have to get this book because I miss her astringent wit.
In the first years of my own family estrangement, I did much more friend-courtship, which was coming from a place of "Will you be my mommy?" Now it happens more naturally and my problem is keeping up with people rather than seeking them out.
I couldn't work the chat (maybe it's not activated, good call) but here's some ephemera for the Bronte heads:
https://nyra.nyc/articles/jane-aerie