To My Dearest Friends (Vintage Contemporaries) [Paperback]

Patricia Volk (Author)

Book Description

Series: Vintage Contemporaries | Publication Date: April 8, 2008

Alice and Nanny have never met before, but they have one thing in common: their late friend Roberta. Alice is the prim proprietor of a chic Madison Avenue shop, while Nanny is a sharp-eyed Manhattan real-estate broker. This New York odd couple is thrown together when Roberta trusts them with her last request—that together they open her safe-deposit box. What they find inside compels these women to address a surprising truth about their beloved Roberta. A profound yet hilarious novel, To My Dearest Friends is the story of two women and a journey of friendship neither chose to take.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Fans of Volk's critically acclaimed memoir, Stuffed: Adventures of a Restaurant Family, will be pleased to find her effortlessly amusing and wise voice behind her accomplished second novel. Alice Vogel, a 62-year-old married Upper West Sider (and proprietress of an Upper East Side boutique), meets, for the first time, Nanny Wunderlich, a 59-year-old widowed therapist-turned-real estate agent, when the two are made co-executrixes of their dead friend Roberta's safe deposit box. In it, they discover a letter from an unnamed lover (Roberta was married) and team up to discover just with whom it was that their dear friend had been clandestinely sleeping. Alice and Nanny's sleuthing is perfunctory, and their voices, in alternating first-person chapters (and some in third person), aren't distinct. But the two are still fully realized New Yorkers, and—beyond frequenting Zabar's and the Metropolitan Opera, and using words like "gazillion"—they have real, stinging insights into later life in the big city: "Charles laughs. If smell had form and color, I would be enveloped in puce haze the size of a hassock," says Alice of the husband she loves. It's Volk's easy depth that makes this book, perhaps the first piece of empty nest chick lit, a winner. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

“Every page is studded with precise and succulent detail. . . . A cozy, kick-off-your-shoes-and-curl-up novel.” —The New York Times Book Review“Deliciously mischievous. . . . This deceptively light book has a lot to say about the complexity of friendship, the use and abuse of secrets, and the restorative power of love.” —O, The Oprah magazine“A book about the intensity and beauty of life after 50. . . . Funny from the get-go, and a dear, timeless tale by its end.” —More magazine “Sparkling. . . . It's the kind of book you read aloud from until friends beg you to stop so they can get their own copy. . . . An irresistible confection.” —Newsday"Clever, funny, light. . . . A novel about privacy and secrecy, the differences between them, and why we need both." —The New York Observer

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Product Details

• Paperback: 187 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (April 8, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307275744
• ISBN-13: 978-0307275745
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,037,972 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific new Volk, June 24, 2007

By 

Gail Hightower (Boston) - See all my reviews

This review is from: To My Dearest Friends (Hardcover)

For those who've happily followed Patricia Volk's books, stories, articles over the years, this novel will be a treat because I think it's the best thing she's done. And if you aren't one of those people, this one can make a fan out of you.

It's got the dancing, jiving prose and the echt-New York atmosphere of her last book, the memoir STUFFED, but now she's got a cast of characters she can get deeper into. And this one has a fascinating plot, a bit of a mystery in fact, that still leaves lots of room for ruminations on marriage, love, relationships, daughters, lovers, Manhattan apartments, and on and on.

I've always thought Volk's wisdom about people and their doings, especially within families, was buried but still there and still revealing. Among a number of things, this book has to do with what it really means to know somebody whom you consider a best friend---which is not what we tend to think it means. And it also has to do with the presence of the dead among the living, also not always what we think. Meanwhile I'm not a New Yorker, have never eaten at Bergdorf's, am not even a woman, but I find the sense of place and personality in this book to be compelling and strangely familiar.

Since it happens to be the beginning of summer I'll call this a truly great summer read.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A frothy read? Yes. But don't be fooled. This is one meaty novel., May 17, 2007

By 

Jesse Kornbluth "Head Butler" (New York) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: To My Dearest Friends (Hardcover)

Patricia Volk comes from a family notable for its creativity. Her great-grandfather brought pastrami to America. Another relative invented the Six-Colored Retractable Pen and Pencil set. And she's descended from the first man to stir scallions into cream cheese.

Forget Volk's stellar career in advertising, her journalism and her other books. Just on the strength of this novel, Patricia Volk is more relevant to today's American culture than a pastrami on rye.

How can that be? On the surface, "To My Dearest Friends" is nothing more than a breezy, chatty, 187-pager about three privileged Manhattan women. One is recently dead. One is the 62-year-old owner of a consignment shop for gently worn designer clothes. And one is a 59-year-old former therapist now selling real estate.

You can imagine the dialogue: kvetch, kvetch, kvetch.

And you'd be so wrong.

For one thing, "To My Dearest Friends" has an irresistible premise: Two weeks after Roberta "Bobbi" Bloom dies, her lawyer calls her two best friends, Alice Vogel and Nanny Wunderlich, to his office. Why? Because Bobbi has given them keys to a safety deposit box. And the lawyer now has a letter for them from Bobbi:

Dearest Nanny and Alice, Dear Dearest Friends in No Particular Order, Please go now to the Chase on Fifty-eighth and Madison. Open the box together. You'll know what to do. Love you to pieces.

Alice and Nanny --- who have nothing in common but their friendship with the deceased --- go to the bank. In the box, they find another letter. A love letter. To Bobbie. Undated. Unsigned. With no further instructions. "You'll know what to do." Hardly.

Obviously, Alice and Nanny can't agree what to do next. But in the course of not agreeing, they have reasons to get together. And we get two treats along the way: wonderfully sharp dialogue and observations, and a quick but deep look into the lives of two New York women.

Some random samples:

Why Bergdorf's moved its restaurant from the 5th floor to the basement: "Guess how many salads you have to sell to equal one pair of Kors stilettos."

The new definition of rich: "someone who could afford their apartment now."

Therapist wisdom: "A man abused by his father is always waiting to be injured. Especially by the person supposed to love him. Injury is what he knows. That's what love is to him."

As Nanny and Alice bumble through the search for the letter writer, we learn a great deal about the Upper East Side of Manhattan. I live a block away from one of these characters, I have watched every change in this neighborhood described in these pages, and I can attest: Volk got it exactly right.

I can't speak to Volk's accuracy about the way women like these view marriage. But I can say that I hoovered --- a verb Volk invented in her advertising days --- this book in an evening.

How does it turn out? With a fantastic surprise. Or so I think. But maybe not. There's some ambiguity at the end --- and don't worry if you weaken and skip there to find out what it is. The words won't help you. This is one book that sends you back to the book for clues. And then into your own head.

"To My Dearest Friends" is an addictive urban adventure story. Nancy Drew for the post-menopausal. Chick-lit for grown-up chicks. And, just maybe, the first novel about New York women to ring a bell for readers in the `burbs since "The Devil Wore Prada."

You don't have to be 50-plus to enjoy "To My Dearest Friends". Or even a woman. You just have to like "smart."

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars While it's not the BEST novel I've read,,,, June 20, 2007

By 

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

This review is from: To My Dearest Friends (Hardcover)

"Friends" is a curiously interesting and highly satisfying read. The characters and the story stayed with me after I'd finished. I'd love to hear an audio-version of the book. I hope one is issued.

After reading "Friends", I read Volk's family memoir, "Stuffed". Her non-fiction is as good as her fiction writing.