Talk Before Sleep

I'm in the middle of rereading Elizabeth Berg's Talk Before Sleep. It was the first book by Berg that I'd read, years ago, purchased at what had been my favorite bookstore (Brigit Books in St. Petersburg, which has long since closed). Since then, I've reread it several times; it is probably my favorite of Berg's books that I've read to date.

Talk Before Sleep is the story of friendship, told from Ann's perspective. Ann and Ruth first met at a party. Ann was immediately put off by Ruth's good looks; she soon discovers, though, that Ruth has an honesty that is even more breath-taking than her looks. However, Ruth soon discovers she has breast cancer, which ends up spreading; by the end of the book, it has killed her.

There are no actual chapters throughout the book, instead leaving a gap between segments. The book dances back and forth between the past and the present. The present follows the story of Ruth's dying and death and how her group of friends - a group of women who are as different a $1,000 cashmere sweater and a comfortable t-shirt - reacts to her illness and death, as well as each other. Ruth's boss, Sarah, is the "kind of woman who can wear a perfectly tailored silk dress to take out the garbage and not spill a single thing on it...management material through and through," while L.D. "is a football-player-sized woman I've never seen in anything but checked flannel shirts and bib overalls..." Meanwhile, the flashbacks tell how Ann and Ruth met, their developing friendship, and what happens in their lives as they inch forward to the final illness.

While a review in Kirkus states that "Berg...offers a sappy tale about a woman witnessing the death of her friend..." (https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/elizabeth-berg/talk-before-sleep/), and NYU School of Medicine's Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database states that "Unfortunately, like many books with much pathos, Talk Before Sleep often missteps into the territory of bathos...the book is mortally flawed in its two-dimensional portrayal of men..." (http://litmed.med.nyu.edu/Annotation?action=view&annid=1150), there are other sites that give the book positive reviews (http://www.storycirclebookreviews.org/reviews/talksleep.shtml , http://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/talk-before-sleep ). While the men in this book might not have been as three-dimensional as the women are, I felt that it was due more to the fact that the book dealt with women's friendships during profound illness than about rounding out characters that one only sees in the periphery.

Meanwhile, for those of us who have either experienced a medical scare ourselves or of friends and family members, this book rings true in its story.