Best Friends

Starred review from May 28, 2001
First novels that track a pair of friends from college days through their subsequent lives aren't exactly uncommon, but Moody's is so freshly observed and gifted with such a palpable sense of the ravages of time that it feels utterly new. Clare, the narrator, is a prematurely cynical Ohio girl, daughter of a left-wing schoolteacher, who says up-front that all she wanted out of college when she went to Oberlin in 1973 was "unrest and demonstrations." Sally Rose is her roommate, an apparently naïve, sheltered kid from a wealthy Los Angeles family whose occasional sly wit and perfect word choices appeal to Clare. The girls grow close, and soon Clare is making regular visits to the big house off Mulholland Drive where Sid, Sally's indulgent, wise-guy father, seems to cast a spell over a happy household. Sally never questions the source of the family wealth, but inquisitive Clare does—and that is the first of many shocks that unfold as the shadows begin to gather around the Roses. Sally's bright, perky younger brother, Ben, turns into a haunted druggie; their mother, ace cook Esther, becomes increasingly remote; Sid begins a long decline into Alzheimer's. Yet despite their geographical distance, the two girls, Sally going into law of a peculiarly California kind, Clare becoming a hardheaded doctor with a specialty in AIDS, never lose their deep attachment, which somehow sustains them through a darkening landscape. They both suffer their share of unhappy relationships—and here Moody's skills at character drawing, already clear in her portraits of Sid and Ben, take full rein—and both come to rueful realization of their limitations, and those of life itself. Even in its dying fall, however, the book never loses its edge, at once compassionate and humorous, nor its moving conviction that a strong friendship between women can be one of life's most powerful relationships.

June 1, 2001
Moody's first novel examines the dynamics of friendship between two very different women, Clare Ann Mann, a small-town Ohio girl, and Sally Rose, who hails from Los Angeles. Meeting as college roommates, the girls are surprised to learn that, paradoxically, Clare Ann is the worldlier of the two. Despite their many differences, the two form a bond that will last a lifetime or at least until the end of the book. Pared to one-third its length, this might have been a valid study of friendship. However, the drama disaster, disappointment, revealed lies, childbirth, drug abuse, AIDS, and so on continues ad infinitum and strains credibility. Expecting some form of closure at the end, the reader is left wondering where the next page is. It is as if Moody simply did not know how to escape the web. Having been a finalist for a Best American Short Stories anthology, Moody might find more success in that more succinct genre. Patricia Gulian, South Portland, ME

Copyright 2001 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.