Gail Caldwell talking about love, loss and a memoir of friendship

Let's Take the Long Way Home is the kind of book that demands your attention from the very first sentence:

"It's an old, old story: I had a friend and we shared everything, and then she died and so we shared that, too."

Gail Caldwell, award-winning journalist and former book critic for The Boston Globe, calls her book a "memoir of friendship". It chronicles her intense relationship with fellow writer, Caroline Knapp, whom she met in midlife. They shared a history of alcoholism, a deep love for their dogs, writing and rowing, and walking in the woods.

They were soul mates - and became so close they were often mistaken for sisters, lovers and even each other.

But the book is also a story about loss, and the untimely death of Caroline Knapp who, at age 42, died of lung cancer.

When that imagined future was cut short it left Gail Caldwell reeling.

But, she is a writer and so she found herself putting pen to paper. It began with that one sentence, written out longhand on a blank legal pad- and it was a year before she could write another word.

Gail Caldwell was a critic and staff writer for the Boston Globe for more than twenty years. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2001. She is also the author of A Strong West Wind, a memoir of her native Texas.

Gail Caldwell joined us from a studio at WBUR radio in Boston.