What do women talk about when they know they don't have forever? They talk about what they have always talked about, only they go deeper and are more honest; with outrageous humor they try to mitigate pain. Intimate and uncensored sharing, the kind of connection women prize, is at the heart of this deeply moving novel about the grit and power of female friends.

Ann and Ruth have always talked as only great friends can - honestly, and about everything: husbands and marriages, sex lives and children, their work, their hopes, their disappointments, and their dreams. For Ann, cautious and conventional, her closeness to the outspoken and eccentric Ruth brings about discovery and liberation, a chance to say whatever she wants, and, most important, under the insistent tutelage of Ruth, to become herself.

Over the years, the women have shared recipes, quilting patterns, child care, delicate and dangerous secrets. Each rests secure in the knowledge that they will be friends forever. Then Ruth is diagnosed with cancer, and everything changes; the women begin to share something more profound than either of them might have predicted.

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About Talk Before Sleep Joan Gould has said: "Brilliantly funny and brilliantly sad... Elizabeth Berg is one of those rare souls who can play with truths as if swinging across the void from one trapeze to another." Written with an unerring ear for how women talk, laugh, and cry together, and with a gift for capturing the magical uniqueness of personality, Talk Before Sleep is sure to find a place in readers' hearts. The talk is about what matters, and it tells the truth about what women know and can do.