Talk Before Sleep is a novel that overwhelmed me. I became totally involved with the characters, and find myself unable to analyze this book or discuss it unemotionally. It is a novel that I actually “felt” – the emotion is real, strong, and beautiful, and if there are flaws with the book’s structure, I am unable to identify them. The experience of reading this novel was rich, personal and deeply moving. Talk Before Sleep is a novel about women and about the bonds between them. It is a story about friendship, personal growth, fear, love and faith. Ann Stanley and Ruth Thomas are in their early 40s, and are the best of friends. They are like soul mates; sharing their joy and pain, hopes and disappointments. When Ruth is diagnosed with breast cancer, she, Ann, and a small but tight group of friends find their world turned upside down. They are forced to deal with the painful reality of Ruth’s illness, and the shocking fragility of her mortality. Berg writes the book from Ann’s perspective, but manages to share the hopes and fears of every woman in this circle of friends. What the reader takes away is a very moving story about strength, loyalty and love. “She had one lung removed. I brought her a huge bouquet, purple and blue for healing, white because she loved white, and no carnations because she hated them. I gave her chest tube a name, Charles, because she was afraid of it. I held her hand when they pulled it. “Now,” she said, after they’d put a dressing on. “Back to business. I’m really tired of these constant interruptions.” She said something like that after she found out it was in her bones, too. Then, when it was in her brain, she quit saying it. When the work gets too hard, you stop talking about it. You just try to do it.” (Talk Before Sleep, page 114) It is passages like this one that totally absorbed me into this novel. Berg doesn’t share detailed descriptions of the progression of the cancer. She doesn’t discuss the physical manifestations of the disease. Rather, she subtly shares the experience of each of these women, and how dealing with Ruth’s illness changes their lives and their awareness of each other. Berg shares the importance of friendship between women, and how we are somehow more whole when we share our lives with our female friends. Through these women and their interactions, we witness personal growth in these women, and we are inspired by their strength. Berg’s writing makes it easy for the reader to also see the strength and growth in ourselves. I won’t ruin the story for you, if I tell you that Ruth does succumb to her disease, and that, after an admirable fight, she leaves this world and her closest friends behind. The story, however, is not one of sadness and death, it is one of faith and of the power of love to survive death and loss. “I don’t want to take anything,“ I say. “I want to leave things for you to come back to.” She nods, and I see the shine of tears in her eyes as she looks around her bedroom. “I don’t think I’m coming back, though.” “But I want you to,“ I say. I am being nonsensical. I am acting like a child, I know it. This can’t be helping her. “I will come back as a little breeze, “ she says. “You will feel me on your face, and you will know that I’m still listening. So you can still talk to me.” (Talk Before Sleep, page 183) Obviously I recommend this book. It is a book that I want to share with my women friends; a book that reminds me that even when life is hard, I am blessed with true friends, and with their love and support.
I don't know what it is about Berg, but she just seems to GET people. I think I'm going to have to search out more of her books for the characterization alone. I don't necessarily love the characters--or even like them--but they are so multi-dimensional and react like real people that I can't help but get sucked in. This particular book is about women's friendships. Phew--complicated, right? Now add in that Ruth is dying from breast cancer and it gets even more complicated.I could chat and chat about this book. I have lots of acquaintances, and several friends. But women with whom I connect outside of superficial similarities (season in life, life choices, etc) and even IN SPITE of differences--they are rare. And priceless. Have you ever stopped to think of who you would want to be with you in the final weeks of your life as you know you're dying? Have you ever thought of who you would be willing to put the rest of your life on pause for so you could spend those final weeks of their life with them?Talk Before Sleep is interesting to examine the dynamics of women's friendships. What connects different women? Isn't it interesting how in one relationship a woman is the leader while in a different relationship she is the follower? And what should we think about how close women friendships can affect a woman's marriage and immediate family? (I even think of Debi Pearl's cautions regarding female friendships.)I also found it poignant that Ruth came to regret leaving her husband. It makes me think of a saying I recently saw along the lines of "Instead of thinking the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, water your own grass." While at times Ann was jealous of Ruth's perceived freedom, her cute little apartment, and her "self-knowledge", she comes to realize that Ruth was lonely. "I don't like living alone," Ruth finally concludes. "I needed to live alone to find that out. Funny, huh?" (pg 107). I wish women who are ready to leave their husbands, families, etc. in pursuit of "self" could read this and rethink their options.Finally, I want to see Sophie's Choice, which is a movie the two main characters watched that made them cry. (I know, I'm weird like that) Or maybe read the book. I know nothing about either one. And I appreciated these quotes:"She was capable of a scary kind of honesty I was ready for, although until that moment, I hadn't realized how much I'd been needing to meet someone I might be able to say everything to" (14)."Ruth has friends like other people have wardrobes. I mean that there's someone for every occasion" (36).Thanks for the recommendation (I think), Misti. :)
What do You think about Talk Before Sleep (2006)?
What an incredible book. I bawled my eyes out. Ms. Berg just made the emotion of losing a dear friend to breast cancer so real. This was a book of incredible friendship and love. It reminded me how important it is to be happy in the moment, to find joy in the people in your life. I loved the quirky characters, they were all so real by the end of the book.This was just an amazingly beautiful book. Everytime I feel a breeze, I'll be reminded of this book and of the eternity of friendships and our ties to those who've already gone on ahead of us.
—Michelegg
This is the complete review as it appears at my blog dedicated to reading, writing (no 'rithmatic!), movies, & TV. Blog reviews often contain links which are not reproduced here, nor will updates or modifications to the blog review be replicated here. Graphic and children's reviews on the blog typically feature two or three images from the book's interior, which are not reproduced here.Note that I don't really do stars. To me a book is either worth reading or it isn't. I can't rate it three-fifths worth reading! The only reason I've relented and started putting stars up there is to credit the good ones, which were being unfairly uncredited. So, all you'll ever see from me is a five-star or a one-star (since no stars isn't a rating, unfortunately).Normally I'm a big advocate of authors reading their own stories in audio books, because actors sure as hell are a disaster when it comes to doing this. Of course, just as some actors actually can do it, some authors cannot, and this author is one of those. The story was already maudlin to the point of being nauseous, and this author's whispery, sad, needy, whiny voice did not help one bit. I made it through only one disk (roughly one sixth the way through) so I can't speak for the whole novel, but after this one disk I was, "Check please, I'm outta here". It was obnoxious. It was nothing more than the movie Beaches over again. I actually liked that movie. This novel was an insult to it.It looks like the main character has a child dying of cancer, but rather than focus on that, which if it had not been done tritely and predictably, might have made a story that hasn't already been done to death, the author takes us away to her main character's (yes, the kid, obnoxiously named Meggie, is dying but she's not the main character! I guess that's different!) story and delivers us to her entirely predictable friendship with a woman she initially dislikes. This woman (the narrator) is married, yet we hear this: "Until that moment, I hadn't realized how much I'd been needing to meet someone I might be able to say everything to."If your husband isn't that person, then you married the wrong man, you hockey puck.Despite having despised this woman five minutes before, they go off to see a movie which ought to tell you everything you ever need to know about this disaster: Sophie's Choice. Seriously, it was truly tedious to listening to the mindlessly boring minutiae of this woman's life, and her friend who is also dying of cancer. Let's load up on the cancer! Maybe I misunderstood what was going on form my brief listen, but that's what it seemed like to me, and it seemed awfully selfish, to me, that this old friend would be more important than her own daughter.The author claims this story is rooted in a personal experience of her own, but if so she leads a tedious life. She didn't make this remotely engrossing or interesting. It was rite, predictable and boring as all hell.
—Ian Wood
Elizabeth Berg is one of my favorite authors. I dive right into her books with their compelling story lines and rich characters. Talk Before Sleep was the first book of hers I read. It made me realize at once that I was blessed with the kind of friend that many people never get to have and that I was a selfish, scared woman who nearly lost this rare gem of a friend. I immediately took action to repair this precious gift.This story speaks of the bond, the love, that can only exist between two women, best friends. Have tissues handy because you at times might laugh your beverage out your nose or cry so hard that your throat aches.
—Elizabeth
