Under Investigation: Non Fiction Book Club

A smart and thought-provoking memoir, history, and cultural critique about the turmoil and complexity of female friendship.

 

Our culture today is awash with images of strong female friendships: the lifelong BFFs, the glossy gal pals, the enviable, hypersuccessful work wives. Yet cultural historian Tiffany Watt Smith has always found her own life much messier. She has had dramatic friend breakups, friendships that felt like too much or not enough, friendships that drifted into silence, and friendships built on convenience rather than a meeting of minds. And with each failure, there are older cultural scripts to contend with. Which bad friend is she? The competitive rival, the jealous backstabber, the underminer, the fair-weather friend?

We have all been bad friends. It’s impossible to be a perfect one; as Watt Smith points out, women’s friendships have long been magnified, scrutinized, praised, and admonished, creating a legacy of impossible ideals. In Bad Friend, Watt Smith mines the rich cultural history of female friendship to look for a new paradigm that might encompass the struggles along with the joy.