Do you not miss those pre-internet years when we used to receive letters in our mailbox? I cannot quite recall if I had kept a pen pal as a young child. I certainly have fond memories of writing and receiving letters, postcards and aerogrammes in the seventies and eighties before the internet changed everything.
Kate & Frida by Kim Fay is an epistolary novel. It is a story about friendship between twenty-something Frida Rodriguez and Kate Fair, a bookseller from Seattle. On October 21 1991 Frida writes from Paris to Puget Sound Book Company in Seattle, Washington asking for Martha Gelhorn’s The Face of War.Kate happens to be assigned to respond to her request. Kate gives Frida an employee discount to make up for the fact that she has been reading it though she has been careful when reading it. Frida hails from Los Angeles and she is in Paris ‘en route to her future!’ She has a journalism degree and dreams of writing something meaningful. She aspires to be a war correspondent just like Martha. She wants to make a difference and when she goes to Sarajevo, it dawns on her that nothing will make a difference when the city is under siege and a war that she cannot comprehend. She is terrified and realises that she does not have a steely heart that she can live in a war zone where humans are tortured in unimaginable ways.She goes home then returns to Paris. Kate makes Frida a mix tape that includes songs like You’ve Got a Friend by Carole King, With a Little Help from My Friends- ( Beatles version). With a little help from my friends (Joe Cocker version) etc . Sweet.
Both Kate and Frida are both bookstore addicts. Frida who keeps a pixie haircut claims that she has been to thirty-six different bookstores in her life and she is not even twenty-five. Through their letters , they tell each other their aspirations, self-doubts, romance, work and ambition. Kate tells Frida about her Bumpa, her mother’s father who is a man of grace, humility and generosity.They cheer each other on and share thoughts about how to navigate their disappointments and finding beauty in loss. When Kate’s relationship does not work out, Frida feels guilty about having encouraged Kate to go for it. She tells Kate about MFK Fisher and her first marriage, about how she had to leave her husband to find herself. ‘What if no matter how wrong they are for us, we need to love some people so we can grow – and then outgrow them like MFK outgrew Al? What if that’s the whole reason they come into our lives? So we can grow with them and then beyond them.’
In September 1994, Kate, the blond with the shaggy Meg Ryan haircut surprises Frida by showing up in Paris.
Kate & Frida by Kim Fay is about two young women trying to find their footholds in the world. There is so much of the unknown and unknowable, we do not have to try to make sense of everything that happens. While there are always conflicts and sadness, there is also much to celebrate and give us laughter and joy.
Kate & Frida by Kim Fay is a delightful novel about friendship, food and books. In the novel, many books are mentioned and recipes of the food described in the book are also included.
In the Author’s note, Fay writes that while this is a work of fiction, much of it was inspired by her own life. She wrote the novel from her heart to her early twenties self in the early 1990s, working at the Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle. In her words, she wanted her younger self to know : ”You won’t be confused and lost forever. It was not a waste of time loving someone you outgrew. Growing apart from friends because you live different kinds of lives doesn’t mean growing away from your heart’s connection to them. You will recover from the grief that dismantled you when Bumpa had his stroke. You will continue to get things wrong, and that’s okay. Unlike Kate and Frida, in real life I learned these things gradually, through the many periods of growing up that a person experiences during a lifetime.”
The other day, I clicked on my Instagram, the word Niksen appeared. I came to know that it is a Dutch term that embraces the concept of doing nothing, staying idle, letting the mind wander and simply relaxing without purpose. Niksen is something I often engage in except that it is not without guilt. Life is work in progress….journey on.
‘ You are- your life, and nothing else.’ – No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre
Both concepts suggest that you owe it to yourself to live an authentic life because you are your life.
On that note, HELLO 2026 !!!!
Bookaholic Macchiato 