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Secrets & Confidences, edited by Karen Eng The truth about friendships, especially between women, is that they are never simple.  The truth about friendships, especially between women, is that they are never simple. Relationships can be intense, emotional and often problematic, but still always the most important relationships we may have in our lifetime. Many friendships that end are as emotionally draining as a divorce. Many of those that thrive and last through years of strife and triumph are as significant as a marriage.
Secrets & Confidences is a book all about the mess of friendship. It brings us tales of women who have lived through Le Divorce to those of mothers who find solace and camaraderie in other mothers on the playground. Some friendships can be shallow while others so deep it can feel as if two have become one.
What makes Secrets & Confidences a great book is that the stories included are more than the usual books we see on the shelves today ruminating on aggression between women: the cat-fights, the back-stabbing, the name-calling and the boyfriend-stealing. Secrets & Confidences brings us true tales from real women on the relationships they have had with other women.
If I could have asked for more, it would have been a story from a girl on the flip side of those like Le Divorce or Breaking up with Smitty, the girls who are portrayed as difficult or selfish. It might also have been interesting to have an essay or two on relationships between older women, as it seems most in here are women in their twenties and thirties. There is a lot to be said for friendships that have spanned a lifetime or the importance of relationships in older years (perhaps a thought for a second volume).
The most touching was the story by Jacqueline Lalley titled Evidence, a tale of her friend Kirsten who has been missing since 1998, presumed dead and murdered by the father of her unborn baby. The funniest was that of Sara Bir titled The Barbie Basement in which she and a couple of childhood friends turn Barbie into the everywoman. “Our afternoons ran like proto-Sex and the City episodes. Erin’s Barbie, a high-end fashion designer, stood at the helm of Barbie Designs, has power lunches with Oscar de la Renta, and had a deep-seated rivalry with Calvin Klein.” The most real to me was that of editor Karen Eng titled Le Divorce, because sometimes a friendship breaking up is like losing everything. There are also alternatives to the usual essay, cartoons by Molly Kiely, Ellen Forney, Ariel Schrag and Ariel Bordeaux
Not every story captured my attention like the aforementioned ones, but that was most likely because I can’t yet understand the importance of friendships between playground mothers or the humor of a show like AbFab. What I do understand is the importance of a book like this, which celebrates the intensity and value of friendships between women, and lets us know that they aren’t always pretty, but they can be the most significant relationships we have.
Secrets & Confidences: the complicated truth about women’s friendships
Edited by Karen Eng
Published by Seal Press
256 Pages
ISBN: 158005112X
Review by Gaelle
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