Ann: Meg’s US editor sent me the galley of Sorrow and Bliss. I get so many galleys, and I was so irritated I thought, “I’m not even looking at it. I’m just taking it right out to the recycling bin.” As I walked down the back stairs, I opened it up and as I got to the driveway, I started reading. I stood in the driveway, then I went back upstairs, sat down and read it. I absolutely loved it.
So I blurbed it, and Meg wrote a proper, paper thank-you note, so I emailed her, and then we went back and forward like a couple of very polite cartoon chipmunks. At some point, she sent me a voice note. I didn’t know they existed. So I sent her one back and then we fell into this kind of psychiatric analysis, talking and listening, back and forth, every day.
She makes me feel known. The quality of her attention is like, “This person’s really seeing me.” We’re both always saying, “This is the most boring voice note ever made, I am so sorry”, but whenever she says it, I think, “What are you talking about?” I have never known anyone who comes out with so many brilliant, sharp, often hysterically funny observations.
‘Since we became friends, I wrote Tom Lake. And the form of that book is telling someone, verbally, the story of your life – which is exactly what I’ve done with Meg.’
Ann Patchett
You can’t really be profound friends with a writer if you don’t like their work. And she had already reached me in spirit through Sorrow and Bliss: that was the bedrock. But she is just so smart, so funny, so quick. She can organise all the index cards of your life and her life, then match them up. She’ll be like, “This is my mother’s nut-roast recipe” and I’m like, “Oh, thank god, I did not know what to make for dinner tonight.” Now I make it twice a month.
Professionally, I’ve been in this career longer, so I can say, “Don’t fall for that, girlfriend.” Creatively, what she sees as her own lack of confidence I see as part of the journey. I can say, “I know that place, and there you are, but there you will not stay.” Since we became friends, I wrote Tom Lake. And the form of that book is telling someone, verbally, the story of your life – which is exactly what I’ve done with Meg. So we’ll give her all the credit for that.
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When she came to Nashville, it was like being a child and meeting your penpal: “Oh, it’s you. I know you.” We sat around, talked. She read two books. I know she’s already feeling sad that I’m leaving [Sydney, where she attended the Writer’s Festival] soon. I respect it – it’s tender. But also, my whole life, going to see my father until he died, he would pick me up at the airport and say, “I’ve been so happy thinking you were coming and now the sand is starting to run through the hourglass.” So I’m always saying to Meg, “No. This is what we have. Right now, today.” Sometimes she’ll still say something like, “I’m trying to imagine how I’m going to feel when you’re dead.” And I’m like, “What the hell!?” And she says, “But I won’t be able to bear it.” And I’m like, “Huh. Well. I guess I’ll be fine with it.”
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