Review of Let's Take The Long Way Home by Gail Caldwell

Author: Gail CaldwellPublished by: Random House
Pages: 224
Source: Own
Format: Hardcover
Rating: ★★★★

Summary from Goodreads: With her signature exquisite prose, Caldwell mines the deepest levels of devotion and grief in this moving memoir about treasuring and losing a best friend. Let’s Take the Long Way Home is a celebration of life and of the transformations that come from intimate connection—and it affirms, once again, why Gail Caldwell is recognized as one of our bravest and most honest literary voices.

This novel was extremely hard emotionally for me to read.  Gail Caldwell brings such emotion into her writing that I felt as if I was losing my best friend along with her.  Her grief escaped the pages and buried itself into my heart.  Her story is not one of hope, but more a story of what she had and will continue to cherish for the rest of her life. 

This story is about best friends both of the human and the canine sort.  It goes through Gail's love and devotion to both and how she coped with the grief of losing them.  This was the hardest part of the novel for me.  Death is hard, but the thing most people don't realize is that grief is harder.  It's something that you don't have that person or animal there for to help you through and sometimes it something you must go through alone. 

Let's Take The Long Way Home is a beautiful and heartbreaking story that is told in the most truthful and sincere voice.  It will have you laughing one moment, crying the next and the whole time examining your relationships to the people (and animals) who are closest to you.