Writer's Read

Dearest Stranger, Dearest Friend

Dearest Stranger, Dearest Friend
Laney Katz Becker
Harper Perennial, Oct 2001
ISBN 0 3808 147 81

The novel Dearest Stranger, Dearest Friend opens when Lara posts a message to a Breast Cancer board, having found a lump. She receives many responses, one of which is from Susan, with whom she starts corresponding via e-mail.

Except for the first board messages, the entire novel is told exclusively through the e-mails the women share. Through these letters, we learn about their families, their lives, and about the ravages of breast cancer.

Normally, I do not enjoy epistolary novels. Some may find that fact strange, since I love writing and receiving letters (as last month's column showed). But most novels that rely on letters to tell the story leave me cold. Stilted dialogue, or maybe action that seems forced, can be traced to my abhorrence of the "Letter Novel." Perhaps it is simply a reaction to being forced to read "Pamela" in college.

This novel is different, though. The voices of the two main characters come through bright and warm. Even in their worst moments they stay true to themselves: complaints, jokes, rants against uncaring doctors, family life with teenaged daughters and finding the humor in the worst possible circumstances.

Or maybe it's that I'm different now. I can relate to having friends who I've never met but who make my life better. Friends who genuinely care when I'm having a bad day or when I'm stressing out over my wedding. Friends who remind me that I don't have to disappear when the going gets rough: they'll help me weather the storm.

Laney Katz Becker gives us a heartbreaking situation, made better through the friendship of two strangers in Dear Stranger, Dearest Friend. Although there isn't much actual speaking, she allows us to see the dialogue between two women and to watch a friendship blossom. Perhaps that is why this letter novel works. While we do get a sense of the action that is going on in their lives, it is the relationship between Lara and Susan that pulls the reader through the novel.

Epistles and all.

Wynelda Ann Shelton