How Close We Come

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Synopsis

How Close We Come is the story of Ruth and Pril, next door neighbors and intimate friends, whose children are close friends as well. The two women share every detail of their lives, from gossip to parenting advice to keeping secrets from their husbands. Then, after ten years of remarkable intimacy, and without letting Pril know, Ruth leaves. She simply packs up her children for a vacation out West and never returns. Pril is bewildered, and angry, and most of all, terribly lonely. When Ruth’s husband Reed sues for custody, he names Pril as his witness, and her impending testimony is a terrible dilemma, a painful test of her loyalty. She’s torn between the friend who has deliberately abandoned her, and her duty and obligation to truth. Matters are worsened by Pril’s husband Scotty, who firmly sides with Reed. Husband and wife argue bitterly over responsibility and compassion and morality and the nature of love: conflicts and issues mirrored in their own marriage.

How Close We Come is an examination of the expectations for intense friendships. The novel portrays the pain of love and dependency and the terrible losses within marriage, and the story’s final question asks how much we can truly know the people we love the most.

Questions for Susan

What was the genesis for How Close We Come?
As with most of my writing, several factors coincided. One of my sons was attending a boarding school that placed a great deal of emphasis on an honor code, and “choosing the hard right over the easy wrong.” I kept thinking, yes, but suppose there are two hard rights--then what? Too, the novel grew out of a laughed conversation in the park with a friend who said, “You know, one morning my husband is going to turn over in bed and I’ll be gone.” Never mind her husband’s reaction; I thought about how I’d feel if she suddenly vanished. And finally, I’d written a long, descriptive, never-published family saga that was moldering in the attic, and I wanted to write a short, conversation-driven novel as an experiment.

So it isn’t autobiographical?
No, the story itself isn’t autobiographical. I’ve never had a friend who left. I’ve never been a witness at a custody dispute, or even been inside a courtroom except on jury duty. To learn about a custody hearing I took a lawyer to lunch, and spent some time in the legal section of the public library. If I have a friend who’s had an abortion, she hasn’t shared the details with me. I called a gynecologist friend of mine and asked him the tough questions (after which he requested that I please not thank him in the acknowledgments!). On the other hand, nearly every domestic detail is true. I do, in fact, have a friend who told me she didn’t consider it a day unless she made someone cry. I do, in fact, have a friend who stuck her hand down the commode of a bus to fish out her daughter’s dropped glasses. And the pillowcases with the orange crayon streaks? They’re in my hall closet.

Is Ruth a lesbian?
Though I have a friend who maintains to this day that Ruth is a lesbian, she’s not. I included that implication for three reasons. First, because I had (another) friend who was working toward her PhD in Women’s Studies, and I once asked her if there were lesbians in her classes. She brought me up short by replying, “You know, Susan, you can be a feminist without being a lesbian.” Second, I wanted to illustrate the insidious nature of female gossip. And third, the dialogue exchange provided an opportunity to show how very much Pril wants and needs to be first in Ruth’s heart.

How about that horse scene? Where did that come from?
At one point my father-in-law raised Arabian horses. When my husband and I were dating, I asked if we could go to the farm and watch a breeding. We did, and like Pril I was fascinated and horrified. Afterwards, while standing in the kitchen with his family and talking about the experience, my husband-to-be began neighing and pawing at my back, laughing. I was furious. I didn’t find the imitation funny at all, and never forgot either the breeding, or his jokey antics (but I married him anyway).

Do Ruth and Pril ever get back together?
When How Close We Come was first published, I had no idea. I had to “age” to experience first-hand how I’d feel. But now I’ve written a sequel titled COME TO THIS, and the answer is yes. Ruth and Pril are reunited, but not without pain for both of them, tough choices for both of them, and surprising revelations about the lives they’ve led during their decade-long separation.

Susan's Questions for Reading Groups

The title How Close We Come can be interpreted several different ways with regard to the story. What are they?
In answering the attorney’s question, “Was Ruth a good mother?” does Pril help Ruth’s chances for custody of her children, or make the situation worse?
Who is the weaker of the two women, Ruth or Pril? Why do you think so?
Ruth and Pril grieved for Roslyn when she committed suicide, but I deliberately made them deeply ashamed as well. Why should they have been ashamed? Psychiatrists often state that those traits we dislike in other people are often the traits we dislike in ourselves. Does this tenet hold true for Ruth, Pril, and Roslyn?
Ruth was motivated to leave by several catalysts. What were these catalysts, and do you think they were valid?
I’ve lived my entire life in the South, but I don’t intentionally write “Southern” fiction. Some readers have been surprised, in fact, to learn I wasn’t Midwestern after reading How Close We Come. Another reader said slyly to me, “You know and I know that this is a very Southern novel.” Is it? Why? Why would readers think the novel was Midwestern?
One reader has declared that How Close We Come is a fictional version of the nonfiction book MEN ARE FROM MARS, WOMEN ARE FROM VENUS. Do you agree? Why or why not?
Bonus question: Did I leave out any movies that should have been on Ruth and Pril’s list?

Publicity & Reviews

“When Ruth Campbell packs up her two little children and drives away from her husband and "close-to-downtown has-been neighborhood" of Greensboro, N.C., she inadvertently shatters the world of her best friend and next-door neighbor, Priscilla (Pril) Henderson. In this short, reflective, smoothly written first novel, a 1997 Carolina Novel Award winner, Kelly uses a painful divorce to examine the close friendship between Ruth, an awakening feminist increasingly unhappy with her dependence, and Pril, a writer contented with her lot as a wife. Ruth's husband has Pril subpoenaed as his witness during the custody trial, and Pril waits in vain for a sign from her friend as to what she should say. Tension mounts between Pril and her husband, and the pull of loyalties becomes acute as she must decide how to testify. The painful facts leading up to the judge's decision are interwoven throughout the narrative, while Pril tries to understand how a friend she knew so intimately could behave as she did. The denouement of this auspicious debut is strong and affecting.” —Publishers Weekly

“…poignant… Kelly has a gift for depicting the tenor of (her characters') lives in a few sentences.” —Nancy Oates, Raleigh News and Observer