Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close

Sow and Friedman’s narrative explores the joys and challenges of Big Friendships, illustrating that while they are a source of great strength and empowerment, they are also fraught with complexities and hurdles that test their resilience.

Sow and Friedman celebrate the joy and empowerment that deep friendships foster. They liken their initial spark to “falling in love” (18). They describe the early, heady days of their relationship as an exhilarating meeting of minds. Their compatible personalities quickly meshed as they fostered a relationship of mutual support and camaraderie. Moreover, Sow and Friedman explain how their friendship gave rise to the concept of Shine Theory, which posits that the success of one friend can serve as a beacon of potential for the other, emphasizing the empowerment inherent in uplifting one’s friends. In the later chapters of the book, the authors also delve into the ways friendships can serve as support systems to help weather the hardships of life such as health and career challenges. These elements collectively underscore the book’s celebration of the enriching power of friendships.

However, Big Friendship does not gloss over the trials that such relationships inevitably face. The authors introduce the metaphors of “stretching” and “straining” to articulate the ongoing effort required to maintain these bonds and the tensions that can emerge.