“She very much put me on the path that I ended up on,” Sullivan says. Sullivan was walking to her car in the rain when a big SUV pulled up and she recognized the mother at the steering wheel. This is exactly what happened to Sullivan when she ran into a mother at Smith College, 10 years after she had babysat for her daughter. In the case of Sullivan’s fictional mom, Elisabeth, and the college girl she hires, Sam, they might have trouble recognizing one another. Everyone involved - the hiring mom, the babysitter, the child - move on.
Sullivan describes it as “a very specific rite of passage.”īabysitting is a powerful experience that is also ephemeral. It’s also about inequality on college campuses with some students working in the cafeteria and others studying abroad.Īt the root of her new book is the intense but often momentary relationship between a babysitter and her employer. Her 2010 novel, “Commencement,” was set at her alma mater, Smith College, and began as an homage to Mary McCarthy’s classic, “The Group,” which was set at Vassar College.Ī gossipy neighborhood book club is reading “The Group” in Sullivan’s new novel, “ Friends and Strangers,” which is about book clubs and message boards for moms such as the one Sullivan actually belonged to in Brooklyn, New York. Courtney Sullivan writes a lot about female friendships. (Courtesy Penguin Random House) This article is more than 2 years old. But when Sam finds an unlikely kindred spirit in Elisabeth's father-in-law, the true differences between the women's lives become starkly revealed and a betrayal has devastating consequences.Ī masterful exploration of motherhood, power dynamics, and privilege in its many forms, Friends and Strangers reveals how a single year can shape the course of a life."Friends and Strangers," by J. She's worried about student loan debt and what the future holds. Sam is struggling to decide between the path she's always planned on and a romantic entanglement that threatens her ambition. Enter Sam, a senior at the local women's college, whom Elisabeth hires to babysit. She neglects her work, losing untold hours to her Brooklyn moms' Facebook group, her "influencer" sister's Instagram feed, and text messages with the best friend she never sees anymore. Alone in the house with her infant son all day (and awake with him much of the night), she feels uneasy, adrift.
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