Imagination personified: How to Make a Friend by Fleur Smithwick

Alice’s parents divorced when she was two, her photographer father moving out and leaving her in the dubious care of her mother, a narcissistic former model. Shunned by her elder siblings, and friendless at school, Alice takes refuge in her imaginary friend. Sam is always available when she needs him but, of course, she eventually grows out of her childish attachment, finding a real friend in her mid teens in Rory and his glamorous older brother, Jonathan. Ten years on, Alice is driving Rory and his partner, Daniel, back from her father’s wedding, when a lorry crashes into them and kills her friend. She wakes up from a three-week coma to find Sam at her bedside, her imaginary friend grown-up. As she tries to regain a normal life, Sam proves to be both a comfort and an embarrassment: no-one else can see or hear him and friends and family are bemused when she talks to him in public. Of course they’re concerned for her sanity but, as Sam develops his own identity, that could be the least of her problems. Sam becomes as dependent upon her as she is on him and, regardless of her own desires, he wants her for himself. Sam’s possessiveness and presumption of Alice’s indebtedness for his earlier generosity is chillingly reminiscent of Barbara in Zoe Heller’s Notes on a Scandal.

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It’s not easy to create a convincing narrative out of such a preposterous premise but, on the whole, I think Fleur Smithwick pulls it off. Alice’s head injury provides a credible trigger for her altered perception and the fragility and loneliness of her character is sufficient motivation. Initially, Alice is as sceptical as the reader about Sam’s reality outside her own mind. Her family even send her to a psychiatrist (albeit one seemingly more interested in therapy than in diagnosis and surprisingly reluctant to prescribe antipsychotics) to be checked out. But Sam resists attempts to rationalise him out of existence.

I did find the opening chapter (that follows the enticing prologue) a bit off-putting in the profusion of characters, too much like the real experience of being overwhelmed by an excess of introductions at a big party, but persistence pays off. How to Make a Friend is a light read with a deeper undercurrent around the desperation of loneliness and the risks of unbalanced friendships. It also merits a deeper reading in terms of the defence of projective identification: Sam may be the personification of Alice’s guilt at the accident that killed her friend or the “vengeful alter ego” (p292) of a woman who swallowed down her anger about her continual appeasement of others, reminiscent of the superwoman role adopted by Jenny in Shelley Harris’s Vigilante. Thanks to Bantam Press for my review copy. For my reviews of other novels about friendship, see these posts: The pain of being human; The country house meets friendship betrayed; Nemesis or scapegoat?; Friend fatale.

Today brings us to the end of Sophie and Suze’s Review Challenge. I didn’t meet my target of a review a day over the eleven days, but I have, somewhat to my surprise, managed to post on the blog on each of those days, and ten reviews is still probably more than enough for anyone. Thanks to everyone for reading and commenting; I’m hoping to settle back to a twice a week routine after I’ve met the latest flash fiction challenge by tomorrow’s deadline.

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