With Friends Like These: A Novel [Hardcover]

Sally Koslow (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 10, 2010

Have you ever been a less than perfect friend? To whom does your first loyalty belong—your best friend or your husband? With her trademark wit and empathy, Sally Koslow explores the entangled lives of women in this candid, fast-paced novel.
 
Quincy, Talia, Chloe, and Jules met in the early nineties after answering a roommate ad for a Manhattan apartment. Despite having little in common, the women became fast friends. A decade later, their lives have diverged, though their ties remain strong.

Quincy, a Midwestern introvert, is trying to overcome a set of tragedies by hunting for the perfect home; Talia, a high-energy Brooklyn wife and mom with an outspoken conscience, is growing resentful of her friends’ greater financial stability and her husband’s lack of ambition; timid Chloe, also a mother, is trying to deflect pressure from her husband, a hedge fund manager, to play the role of trophy wife; while Jules, a fiercely independent actress/entrepreneur with a wicked set of life rules, is confronting her forties alone.

 When Jules gives her new boyfriend the inside scoop on the real estate gem Quincy is lusting after, and Talia chases a lucrative job earmarked for Chloe, the women are forced to wrestle with the challenges of love and motherhood. Will their friendships and marriages survive? And at what price? Punchy yet tender, a high-five to sisterhood, this book will hit an emotional bull’s-eye for anyone who has had—or been—less than a perfect friend.
 

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Sally Koslow on With Friends Like These

If we're lucky, we find caring friends who'll value us as much as we value them. They'll make us balloon animals if life throws a suckerpunch and don't secretly rejoice when we gain a chin and a second mortgage. Nor do they send us internet chain letters with apocalyptic threats should we fail to forward the news flash to 17 pals in the next hour. It's when such sterling friends disappoint us that north starts looking like south.

This is the theme--disappointment among friends--that I explore in my new novel, With Friends Like These.

We know not every friend is destined to be a perennial, the James Taylor or Carole King of our emotional road show. What brings a friendship to the Do Not Resuscitate point? The result depends on how bad we feel we've been had, whether and to what degree the evil one serves up remorse and plain old manners.

Here’s what got me going on writing With Friends Like These. A buddy tried to snatch an apartment I found and bid on. Afterward we didn't speak for many months. This wasn't exactly Draconian punishment, but I missed her enough so that once she sang her sorries, we moved on. I had a harder time trying to get past a very close (or so I thought) chum who "by mistake" copied me on an email whining about how she didn't want to go to my last book party. I was hurt at this and other passive-aggressive gestures I began to realize I could not overlook.

The slow erode of this friendship--which I thought would be a lifer--is more painful than the bruise caused by the savage apartment-hunter, because with my party-dissing friend I'd believed there was an unbreakable mutual regard. Realizing that you're not appreciated at a molecular level moves a relationship into the land of phony baloney, a place reached by sailing on the ship of fools--and truly, who's got the time? Do. Not. Resuscitate.

An early reviewer of With Friends Like These called its story line--about four once-close women--"achingly real." The characters don't set out to hurt one another, but reality gets in the way, and sooner than you can say steak tartare, four friendships turn raw.

The gaping hole in our lives left by the missing friendship can hurt like a phantom limb. Which is why With Friends Like These is also a story of forgiveness. Because is any aspect of friendship more important and profound than forgiveness? I don’t think so. If you can’t be a person who learns to forgive, you can’t be a good friend.

---

From Publishers Weekly

Koslow (The Late, Lamented Molly Marx) lifts a potentially trite story of friendship to a knowing, sharp-edged chronicle of ambition and acceptance that's smart, raw, and achingly real. Chloe, married to a Wall Street striver, and Talia, hitched to a teacher with a trust fund, share a copy-writing job while raising preschool boys. Ambition drives them apart, and devotion to each other, to their kids, to their less-than-perfect husbands--brings them back. Quincy and Jules, the childless women in the quadrangle of friends, are the cool ones until New York real estate comes between them. These imperious women are a handful by themselves, but a solid cast of husbands and lovers hold their own: Arthur, the oddball middle-aged lothario who adores Jules; Tom, the trust-fund scion who prefers to remain safely ensconced in an educational ivory tower while letting Talia get down and dirty in the real world; Xander, the ruthless hedge fund hotshot married to beautiful but insecure Chloe; and Jake, the anchor of Quincy's stormy life. Koslow packs a trove of wit and wisdom into a slick pink package.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1 edition (August 10, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345506227
• ISBN-13: 978-0345506221
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1.1 x 9.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #841,424 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Sally Koslow, author of WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE; THE LATE, LAMENTED MOLLY and LITTLE PINK SLIPS, was once the world's happiest magazine editor. After college she moved from Fargo, North Dakota, to work in Manhattan and started immediately at Mademoiselle. She rose in the ranks to become the editor-in-chief of iconic McCall's Magazine, a plum job which took her to the White House,"Today" and "Good Morning America"--all while she edited a magazine for regular American women just like her.

Then a curious thing happened. A new boss decided to hand McCall's to TV celebrity Rosie O'Donnell. Koslow was shifted to Corporate Editor. Rosie moved into her office and her McCall's staff became a turnkey operation for a magazine relaunched as "Rosie." Months later Koslow's job disappeared and O'Donnell quit "Rosie." After a highly-publicized court battle, the judge declared the lawsuit frivolous. By this time Koslow had been hired to create a magazine for Lifetime Television for Women and was able to rehire many of the unemployed "Rosie" staff--her former staff.

The Lifetime job was an editor's delight: the chance to invent a magazine. But starting new magazines is risky and after a few years, Koslow was again job-less, a common event at the top of a masthead. On a whim, she joined a writing workshop. Soon, she finished and sold LITTLE PINK SLIPS, her first novel. In an ironic twist, the novel was optioned by Lifetime TV for a movie. It was also sold to book clubs, released in audiotape, and published in Holland, Russia, Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia Taiwan and Thailand.

Sally's second novel, THE LATE, LAMENTED MOLLY MARX, was published in Germany (ICH, MOLLY MARX, KURZLICH VERSTORBEN) as well as in China, Poland and Turkey, In Germany the book became an immediate bestseller! WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE, Sally's third novel, is now out in paperback and appears in several translations. Her fourth book will be out next June and this time it's non-fiction--SLOUCHING TOWARD ADULTHOD: Observations from the Not-So-Empty Nest. Sally also writes essays and articles for publications including More, O, the Oprah Magazine; Real Simple; Ladies Home Journal; Good Housekeeping and Reader's Digest. She teaches creative writing atg Sarah Lawrence College's Writing Institute and coaches other writers with their work. To arrange a book club visit, inquire about independent writing coaching or just to say hello, you can contact her via her website: www.sallykoslow.com. If you email her, she promises to answer and she invites you to follow her on Twitter: @sallykoslow

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great reading., July 2, 2010

By 

Jill Meyer (United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: With Friends Like These: A Novel (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

Before Bridget Jones burst onto the literary scene and the term "chic-lit" was coined to describe a genre of hapless females trying in their own inept ways to get a man, women were writing novels featuring intelligent, usually clever, women and their dreams and aspirations. From the recent past, Gail Parent, Olivia Goldsmith, Anne Bernays, Elinor Lipman, and Susan Isaacs all produced such novels. (And those are just the few I could list off the top of my head.) I'll add Sally Koslow to that list, after finishing "With Friends Like These", and having read and enjoyed her first novel, "The Late, Lamented Molly Marx".

"Friends" is the story of four women, all in their late 30's and early 40's, who've been close friends since they shared an apartment in Manhattan in their unmarried days. Three of the women have married, and of those three, two have had babies. The other married woman has had a series of miscarriages. The fourth woman is unmarried and doesn't want children. Koslow's novel takes a year in their lives where they each manage to subvert the plans of another "friend". Betraying confidences, taking job offers, and sabotaging real estate aspirations take their toll on the once-close friendships these women enjoyed. Koslow is a good writer; the nuances of life show up in these characters. The story is good and entertaining, and I never disliked a character, though I sometimes disliked what she did.

So, to call Koslow's two books "chic-lit" is wrong. Regular "chic-lit", which I sometimes enjoy, never reaches the story and personality depth Koslow does in her writing. Sally Koslow is an author to keep looking for.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic characters, August 16, 2010

By 

Kspeedr - See all my reviews

This review is from: With Friends Like These: A Novel (Hardcover)

This was such a delightful read. I've read all of Sally Koslow's novels and this one really blew me away. The four main characters are so vividly written. I felt like they were my own friends by the end of the book. It was a great read. Perfect for the end of summer or whenever. I can't recommend it enough.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clear Your Calendar for a Can't Put This Book Down Time!, September 6, 2010

By 

Betsy Platkin Teutsch "moneychangesthings" (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: With Friends Like These: A Novel (Hardcover)

From the very first description of young women heading to Manhattan, apartment and roommate hunting, I knew this book was written by someone who had walked the walk. The two friends and two other women bond through years spending their single years as a foursome in a rent-controlled Upper West Side apartment. Fast forward and two are young mothers, one is a wise, sassy serial monogamist, and the last is happily married but, unhappily, without a baby. One struggles financially, one lives a life of luxury (without feeling confident), one suffers the death of her beloved mother while also losing pregnancies, one ... well, I won't give that plot twist away.

The author writes each chapter from the point of view of one of the quartet, so one hears each of their interior monologues, along with how they interact with the other three. I've never been part of a tight group of friends like this, but the second-guessing of one's self, the way we always think others have it easier than we do, or that others are so much more talented or successful than we are - it's what we women do. We love our friends, feel sorry for our friends, we're glad we don't need to put up with their burdens, and at the same time, are selectively envious of the one whose husband sends all the flowers, the one whose kid got the 2400 SAT score, the one with long legs, the one whose in-laws actually show up to be helpful with the grandchildren - you name it. Just as they look at us the same way.

I saved this book until I had a nice stretch to get into it, since I suspected once I entered the world of Jules, Quincy, Chloe, and Talia, it would be hard to exit. With Friends Like THese delivered. I read a few hours on a train trip, then snuck in a few more hours when I got in bed. Woke up early this morning and read a few more chapters, had coffee - and then sat curled up on the sun porch, reading the last few chapters. Totally delicious!! These women are smart and funny.

I saw myself and people I know in all these characters. Their marriages, their successes, their failures - the way as old friends they really know each other in a way that just isn't the same with new friends, even if we have more specifics in common with the new ones... It does mean, though, that old friends have more capacity to hurt one another, knowing where the bodies are buried. I think the main point of this book is - be there for your friends, treasure them. They are not replaceable. If you do something hurtful, or they do - try to work it out. Ask for forgiveness and if they ask for your forgiveness - giving it to them is a gift to yourself as well. The author conveys the women's struggles to balance self-interest, couple loyalty, family commitments and friendship in a way which is compelling, but never preachy.