On Friendship as a Form of Sanity

Gratitude for my writer pals during this Thanksgiving week.

Taking inspiration from Truman Capote and Harper Lee, who knew the value of a good writerly friendship.

I recently learned a useful phrase. I was having dinner with another writer, and we were talking about how we spend our time. He said that, lately, he spends a good portion of each day on what he calls “friend maintenance.” Emailing, talking on the phone, catching up with people from every corner of life, whether from childhood or college or beyond. Friend maintenance! I love this phrase. It’s helping me to crystallize a notion that has been lurking in my mind for a while, which is that friend maintenance is also, for us writers, a form of sanity maintenance.

The Helsinki Affair came out a week ago, on a Tuesday (books always come out on Tuesdays, which is one of those publishing things I’ve never completely understood). In the past, I’ve always had my book launch events on publication day itself, but this time around, the launch event was on a Thursday. A few months ago, when I realized that the night of the actual publication day would be free, I found myself thinking: Okay, so, how do I want to spend that night?

This is my fourth novel, and by now I thoroughly appreciate just how wacky you feel when you have a new book coming out. The highs are high, the lows are low! The ego bobs around like an errant balloon in the wind. You get a positive review: you’re on top of the world! Then you catch glimpse of your Goodreads rating: never mind, now you want to die! On publication day, that day of internal rollercoastering, I wanted to spend time with other people who understood this feeling, and whose presence might serve as a tether to counter the errant balloon-ness of it all. So I asked a handful of my writer friends if they would have dinner with me that night.

I made a reservation at one of my favorite restaurants in the city, the Sant Ambroeus on Madison Avenue. Part of the reason I love this restaurant so much, beyond the perfect lighting and the sublime desserts, and the fact that it’s less than ten blocks away from our apartment, is because you feel like you are absolutely in New York City (the people-watching is on point), and also like you might not be in New York City at all. The first Sant Ambroeus was in Milan. That lineage is perceptible, and barely diluted by the thousands of the miles between New York and Milan. Our dinner was long, leisurely, and wonderful. I asked my friend S., whose next novel takes place in Italy, and who knows a thing or two about Italy as a result, to please do us the favor of picking the wine. We drank our wine (Etna Bianco), and ate our pasta (ravioli, lasagna), and ordered aggressively from the dessert menu (pumpkin cheesecake, princess cake, pecan tart, tiramisu). Late in the evening, as the restaurant was beginning to empty, as we were in the last innings, lingering over the remnants of dessert and the dregs of wine, I was visited by that pleasantly floaty, where-am-I feeling that I mostly associate with jet lag. That feeling of—how did this happen? How did I suddenly get here? I felt much further away from my ordinary life than I actually was.

There were seven of us at dinner that night. It was funny: each of the writers in attendance is so dear to me, but none of them had properly met one another before. We come from different corners of the city. We range in age, in genre, in background, in number of books published. What we have in common is a devotion to words.

One of my favorite nights in recent memory.

I’ve been thinking about how, when devotion goes deep enough, it begins to shape you. It changes the way you experience the world. There is now a corner of my brain that is solely reserved for writing. This wasn’t always the case; rather it has become the case, over time. Sometimes this part dominates: like right now, as I’m typing on my laptop, as I’m muttering words beneath my breath, trying to wrestle this vague train-of-thought into a coherent narrative. Sometimes this part grows very small and quiet: like when I’m running, or skiing, or cooking, my body fully engaged in physical demands. But on the whole, this devotion is what shapes my days.

I’ve been thinking, too, about the difference between a calling and a career. At times I’m frustrated by how unstable and unpredictable writing can be, as a career path. There is so much I don’t control: how a book gets received, how much it sells, how much money I make. I can write the best book I possibly can, and it might just … flop! It might be really hard to sell the next book, as a result. Sometimes I throw a little temper tantrum inside my brain, like I’m issuing the universe an ultimatum. I say: FINE, world, if I can’t make this work, then maybe I should do something else! Maybe I should go work in finance! I bet I’d make more money in finance!!!

(Leave aside the fact that I am totally and completely unqualified to work in finance. I haven’t taken math since 2005. My temper tantrum self doesn’t care about such logical objections.)

But I’ve never actually quit writing. I keep coming back to it, over and over again, through all of the ups and downs. I wouldn’t say that I’ve quite made peace with the ups and downs. I get just as frustrated as the next person. I have my wobbly moments, my waves of doubt, even of panic. Am I really cut out for this? I think. Should I have kept my day job? Was this whole thing just … dumb? I’m not sure it’s possible for me to get to a place of total and complete peace. I am not sure this is possible for anyone. Maybe the ultra-enlightened among us will reach that mountaintop, but it ain’t me, babe. So if you are like me, if you are a fellow mortal, a person who dwells among the storms and setbacks of this unpredictable world, here is the best advice I can offer: you need to find people who understand exactly what you’re going through. That’s the only way to weather this thing..

At dinner last Tuesday, I occasionally sat back and watched these people—these people whom I love so much!—talk about the new project they were working on, or the challenge of balancing writing with childrearing, or some tricky situation with their publisher, or other things which had nothing to do with writing, and I thought to myself: How on earth did I get so lucky? How can I ever express my gratitude to these people?

I have spent so many hours of my life with these writer-friends, especially over these past several pandemic and post-pandemic years. We’ve had dinners and cups of tea and cups of coffee. We’ve gone for walks in the park and walks along the water. We’ve traded book recommendations and TV recommendations. We’ve talked a lot about the royal family? That might just be my doing, though. I always want to speculate about Harry and Meghan.

Those hours have kept me sane. Those hours have given me courage to make changes I needed to make; have given me steadiness and support when I’ve decided to take risks. But those hours don’t just happen. They take planning, forethought, prioritization. Friend maintenance; sanity maintenance. When I look back at the last few years, I feel so proud of the book I’ve written. The Helsinki Affair is a shift for me, the kind of book I’ve always wanted to write. But dinner on Tuesday night reminded me that I am equally proud of these relationships. I am so proud to know these other writers; to have learned from these writers; to love these writers with my entire heart.

On Tuesday night, we shared a bottle of Prosecco at the beginning of the meal. There was a moment, as our glasses were full with golden bubbles, when I thought, maybe I should make a little toast, something to mark the occasion. But I didn’t really have anything to say. More to the point, there was nothing that needed saying. These are my people, I thought. They already understand everything.

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Happy (almost) Thanksgiving! I’m writing to you from the upstairs study of my father-in-law’s house in Philadelphia. I had a book event here on Monday night, and we’ve stayed on for Thanksgiving week. I’ve been enjoying these last few days of relative quiet. Catching up on emails, chipping away at this essay, drinking tea, wearing soft clothes, watching The Crown after dinner. Downstairs there is the smell of leeks being sauteed for stuffing. The family has gradually started to arrive. Tonight we have the longstanding annual night-before-Thanksgiving tradition of going out for Chinese food. I am sensing that it’s time for me to pry myself away from the peace and quiet of the study—to go run some errands, to offer help with cooking. (Or help with the dishes. I’m a freak, I actually like doing the dishes. Tomorrow night is like my Olympics, y’all.)

I’m wishing you a holiday that gives you whatever you need. Frenzy and family and fullness, or peace and quiet and a solitary slice of pumpkin pie. Sometimes pie is all you really need.