Ever since I read Ann Patchett’s novel Bel Canto and her luminous memoir about a friendship, Truth & Beauty, Patchett has been one of my heroes. She has a way of reaching into your heart and wrenching the “truth and beauty” from deep within you. Whether the story is tragic or not, I feel uplifted by the depth and vividness of her characters and the compassion she brings to their stories.
This memoir essay about an acquaintance that became a deep friendship was published recently in Harper’s. Reading it, I spent half a day alternately laughing and crying. The essay made me want to write and also want to give up writing. I felt that I could never write anything as beautiful.
It’s the story of an unlikely friendship, one that began between strangers and proceeded through seemingly random contacts and events to become one of the closest. These two women wound up living together through the instinctive compassion and generosity of the writer. Ann discovered similar qualities in her houseguest-becoming-friend, as they shared Sooki’s journey through experimental cancer treatment. They shared things on the surface at first, but as the days went on, they became “these precious days” and their sharing deepened into understanding. Don’t assume how the story ends. You’d be wrong. And wrong in part because this is memoir, this is life, and life goes on.
The quality that stays with me after reading this is the realness of these characters, as well as their good hearts. It’s very difficult to create people in print who seem real. Even in memoir, the people on the page are characters, just as in fiction. Only if they walked into my room to say hello would they become people. Words can’t materialize a whole human, but they can point to the wholeness. And this essay did that. As in the best fiction, revealing surprising and unique things about each person, so that your imagination fills in more.
If you want to be moved by the story of a friendship — if you want to learn to write better characters — read it all. However you start, you’ll want to finish, and finishing, you won’t be sorry.
These Precious Days — Ann Patchett