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The Friend Who Got Away: Twenty Women's True Life Tales of Friendships that Blew Up, Burned Out or Faded Away

Jenny Offill, Elissa Schappell

The Friend Who Got Away: Twenty Women's True Life Tales of Friendships that Blew Up, Burned Out or Faded Away - image
Rating: 4.5/5 Stars
Rank: 320
The reasons are myriad: one friend slept with the other's boyfriend; money caused an argument; friends became romantically involved with each other; lives and priorities changed; a bond simply "unraveled." For the women who contribute to this thoughtful anthology, the end of friendship--no matter its cause--is often distressing, and that feeling always lingers.

Yet such a bleak subject has yielded a trove of mostly inquisitive, mindful writing, a selection of very personal pieces about a painful and fairly universal experience.

Some writers remember childhood friendships: Diana Abu Jaber recalls her trials as an expatriate kid in Jordan, torn between a playmate who spoke her language and another whose words she couldn't understand yet with whom she felt closer; Nicole Keeter writes of her connection with and later break from the only other black girl in her fifth-grade class.

Others evoke friendships from college and adulthood, such as Heather Abel and PW Forecasts editor Emily Chenoweth, who, in separate essays, delve into the circumstances that led to their friendship and its demise.

"For a long time... my love for Heather was a piece of glass in my heart; it hurt every time I moved," writes Chenoweth. Though often sad when read in succession, these pieces are deeply affecting. Montaigne said friendship "feeds the spirit"; the same applies to this engrossing collection.


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About the Author

JENNY OFFILL is the author of the novel Last Things. She teaches in the M.F.A. writing program at Brooklyn College.

ELISSA SCHAPPELL is the author of the novel Use Me, a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, and a cofounder of Tin House.



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Editorials

Sample 3 of 3

The Friend Who Got Away: Twenty Women's True Life Tales of Friendships that Blew Up, Burned Out or Faded Away
Jenny Offill, Elissa Schappell
 From Publishers Weekly
The reasons are myriad: one friend slept with the other's boyfriend; money caused an argument; friends became romantically involved with each other; lives and priorities changed; a bond simply "unraveled." For the women... read full editorial
 From Booklist
Editors Offill and Schappell offer ostensibly the first book on lost friendship between women: 20 accounts of bonds that faltered, snapped, or slowly disappeared. Some of them are torch songs; some express anguish on a... read full editorial
 Book Description
Losing a friend can be as painful and as agonizing as a divorce or the end of a love affair, yet it is rarely written about or even discussed. THE FRIEND WHO GOT AWAY is the first book to address this... read full editorial



Customer Reviews

Sample 3 of 4

The Friend Who Got Away: Twenty Women's True Life Tales of Friendships that Blew Up, Burned Out or Faded Away
Jenny Offill, Elissa Schappell
 I agree with the previous review
May 30, 2005 - 5.0/5 stars
I agree wholeheartedly with the previous reviewer, and I'm glad to see from her review that two of the friends have reconciled. From my own experience with my best friend whom I too am estranged from, the kind... read full review
 Provoking and Intriguing--though Sad
(New York, New York) June 1, 2005 - 4.0/5 stars
It's happened to all of us: the friendship you thought would enrich your life forever ends because of death, disinterest, argument, man problems, loss of common interest, distance, illness, or inertia. While it's not at... read full review
 heartwrenching and poignant
(New York, ny United States) June 13, 2005 - 4.0/5 stars
After reading the essays in the poignant, affecting anthology, The Friend Who Got Away: 20 Writers Tell the True Stories behind Their Blow-Ups, Burnouts, and Slow Fades (edited by Jenny Offill & Elissa Schappell), it got... read full review



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