A well-respected author who made news with her fiction debut, The Red Tent, Diamant draws a portrait of a friendship between women that weathers illness and infidelity. Kathleen Levine, a children's librarian in Cape Ann, MA, is 59 years old, married, and the mother of two grown sons. She is also suffering from breast cancer, which brings overwhelming solicitousness from others and countless stories of other women's illness. She is no stranger to the disease, having lived through her sister's death from breast cancer. Joyce Tabachnik is a journalist and pseudonymous romance novelist. Now 42, she is married and has a 12-year-old daughter who bristles at anything her parents say and do. The two Jewish women Joyce by birth, Kathleen by conversion meet at synagogue one Friday evening and begin a relationship that will take them up the Good Harbor beach in Gloucester for frequent walks and talks and through the momentous challenges and fears of their varied lives. Kathleen's ordeal with cancer, especially radiation treatment, rings true, and her honest, compassionate friendship with Joyce, who is doubting her own marriage and her ability to write, will touch readers as they recognize these women's frailties and strengths. Aside from a subplot concerning drug dealing that seems out of place, this is a wonderful story that most libraries should acquire.- Bette-Lee Fox, "Library Journal"
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