Let's Take The Long Way Home

By Wendy Robards

Let's Take the Long Way Home, by Gail Caldwell.

It's an old, old story: I had a friend and we shared everything, and then she died and we shared that, too. -from the ARC of Let's Take the Long Way Home, page 1-

Years ago I read Pack of Two: The Intricate Bond Between People and Dogs by Caroline Knapp which is a memoir about Knapp's recovery from alcoholism and the dog that helped her through it. I remember at the time being unable to put the book down for long. Knapp wrote with an honesty and insight that pulled me into her world ... and her relationship with her dog Lucille resonated with me.

Gail Caldwell was Knapp's best friend. They were drawn together through their mutual love of dogs (in Caldwell's case a Samoyed named Clementine), their similar battle with alcohol and a need that neither one knew they had at the time ... to find a friend who would balance their own strengths and weaknesses.

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. Apart, we had each been frightened drunks and aspiring writers and dog lovers; together we became a small corporation. - from the ARC of Let's Take the Long Way Home, page 13 -

When later Knapp was diagnosed and quickly succumbed to metastatic lung cancer, Caldwell was faced with what seemed the impossible -- to go forward with her life without her best friend at her side. Caldwell's memoir encapsulates the years of friendship she shared with Knapp -- the long walks with their dogs, the hours of rowing on the Charles River in Boston, the late night phone calls -- and the grief Caldwell waded through when Knapp died. But it is also a story about the importance of friendship in our lives, the depth of love we have for others (people and animals alike), and the risk of loss when we decide to love another.

Caldwell's prose is wise and elegant. The passages she shares about her relationship with Clementine made me laugh and cry. When she wrote about bringing her puppy home for the first time, I felt my heart clench with memory of when I first brought Caribou into my life.

After the first sleep deprived twenty-four hours of her invasion, I sat on the back porch with her sprawled asleep in my lap -- she has white eyelashes! I thought -- and tears started streaming down my face. I had had animals all my life, but never had my heart been seized with such unequivocal love. - from the ARC of Let's Take the Long Way Home, page 37 -

I consumed this slim book in just over 24 hours, often with tears flooding my eyes. I could not seem to stop turning the pages even though dread sat on my shoulders. This was a tough book to read in many ways -- sad and heartbreaking. But don't let that stop you from reading it. It is also confirmation of the human spirit and our strength in the face of what feels like unbearable loss. We have all had loss in our lives -- people who have been ripped from our lives before their time, spouses who have walked out on us, pets who have died -- and it always feels insurmountable. Caldwell's memoir is about surviving loss and moving forward; about embracing life; and about the special friendships that come into our lives when we least expect it but need them the most. This book is about taking risks of the heart and about discovering one's inner strength.

Maybe this is the point: to embrace the core sadness of life without toppling headlong into it, or assuming it will define your days. The real trick is to let life, with all its ordinary missteps and regrets, be consistently more mysterious and alluring than its end. - from the ARC of Let's Take the Long Way Home, page 180 -

Let's Take the Long Way Home is a book which will stick with me. For those readers who are not afraid to open their hearts and immerse themselves in another person's pain, but also their joy, this book is a must read.

Five stars out of five.

Please note: Let's Take the Long Way Home is due for release from Random House August 10, 2010 but can be pre-ordered now.

Catch all of Wendy Robard's reviews in her fabulous blog, "Caribousmom".