53 pages • 1 hour read
Aminatou Sow, Ann FriedmanBig Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
PrologueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Prologue Summary
In the opening of Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close, authors Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman take readers into a pivotal moment in their friendship during a spa weekend getaway in Napa. Despite the seemingly perfect setting, they confess to feeling miserable due to the deep-seated issues between them. They describe the trip as an awkward attempt to reconnect, likening it to a strained family reunion or a couples retreat aimed at reviving a fading relationship, underscoring the high stakes they felt in preserving their friendship, which had become central to their identities (xiv).
Sow and Friedman had met five years before this trip and had quickly become inseparable, even starting a podcast together that showcased their bond to the public. However, beneath the surface of their “tight-knit besties” dynamic, there were unaddressed tensions. Their friendship had become dysfunctional. The trip to Napa revealed their reluctance to fully open up about personal struggles and changes in their lives. Sow and Friedman finally admitted to each other that their friendship required serious attention and work. Despite this admission, their journey towards reconciliation confronted the two women with many challenges.
Sow and Friedman explain that they refer to their friendship as a “Big Friendship” to acknowledge its significance and the emotional labor involved in sustaining it. They share that this term represents an effort to encapsulate the depth and intricacy of a bond that transcends simple categorizations like “best friend” or “BFF.”
Sow and Friedman also reflect on the broader cultural context of friendship, highlighting the fact that society extols its virtues without offering substantial support for navigating its challenges. They note that this has compounded their difficulties as they have sometimes struggled to find the right language to describe the difficult parts of their relationship.
The authors say that by narrating their story with a unified voice—referring to themselves as “we” throughout the book—they emphasize the strength of their bond and their commitment to each other. This stylistic choice also allows them to present a collective perspective while acknowledging the individual experiences that have shaped their journey. They note that in places where their experiences significantly differ, they refer to themselves as “Aminatou” or “Ann,” respectively. Their story, they say, is not only a personal recounting of friendship and its trials but also an exploration of the reasons why someone might choose to invest in a complicated yet rewarding relationship over the long haul.
Prologue Analysis
Sow and Friedman employ a narrative structure that oscillates between recounting personal anecdotes and exploring broader cultural observations about friendship. The Prologue sets the scene with a specific, intimate recounting of a strained moment in their friendship during a spa weekend in Napa, serving as an entry point into the theme of The Power and Complexity of Friendship. By starting with a personal anecdote, the authors immediately draw readers into the emotional depth of their friendship, laying the foundation for a book that is both a memoir and a cultural critique. Following the anecdote, the authors broaden their scope to discuss the societal understanding and support of friendship, suggesting that there is a dearth of cultural resources for navigating such relationships. This shift from personal to general serves to contextualize their individual experience within a larger societal framework, highlighting the universal relevance of their story. The structural choice to blend personal narrative with cultural analysis underscores the book’s central thesis: that friendships are complex, significant relationships deserving of the same attention and work as romantic and familial bonds.
Sow and Friedman’s Prologue does not explicitly reference other writers or thinkers, yet it implicitly engages with broader discussions on the nature of friendship and emotional labor. By introducing the term “Big Friendship,” the authors contribute to a growing discourse on the importance and complexity of platonic relationships. The mention of “Big Friendship” alludes to the broader cultural conversation about the way society undervalues The Intentional Work of Maintaining a Friendship. Furthermore, Friedman and Sow’s narrative style, using a collective “we,” nods to feminist practices of communal storytelling and collective experience. This stylistic choice echoes feminist principles of solidarity and collective identity, subtly referencing a tradition of thought that values shared experience over individualism. Through these implicit references, Sow and Friedman establish their authority by positioning their personal story within a larger, culturally significant conversation about the value of friendship.
The authors implicitly utilize an intersectional feminist lens to analyze their friendship, considering how their identities as women and the societal undervaluation of friendship among women shape their experiences. They highlight the societal expectations placed on friendships and the lack of language to describe and navigate friendship’s complexities. This examination reflects an intersectional understanding of how different facets of identity and societal structures impact personal relationships.
Sow and Friedman employ rhetorical devices such as personal anecdotes and collective narration to reinforce themes of friendship’s importance and complexity. The use of a detailed personal anecdote about their spa weekend in Napa vividly illustrates the emotional stakes involved in their friendship. This anecdote serves to humanize the authors, making the subsequent exploration of friendship’s complexities more relatable and compelling to the reader. The collective narration style, using “we” and “our,” emphasizes the interconnectedness and shared journey of their friendship, reinforcing the theme of unity. This rhetorical choice strengthens the message that friendships are collaborative endeavors, requiring mutual commitment and understanding. By combining personal anecdotes with a collective voice, Sow and Friedman effectively convey the depth and significance of their friendship.
