I didn’t want to be limited by what I, as a thirty-year-old, happened to know about love and loss.
The stories had to be true, because within them would be nuances I’d never noticed before and realities I couldn’t have invented. If I’d tried to make something up, it wouldn’t have been anywhere near as interesting as the stories that were playing out in people’s real lives all around me. The journalist Peter FitzSimons once said to me that whenever he reads fiction, he finds himself distracted by a voice in the back of his head that whispers, “This didn’t happen.” When I considered the subject of heartbreak, I knew I didn’t have to make this story up. I’ve sculpted these narratives out of the clay that was handed to me. Where memory has left gaps, I’ve filled the story with color that seems to fit. I do not invent plot and I have done my best not to invent feelings. In the pages that follow, I have turned people’s lives into stories, and at times that has required artistic license.
Human memory is not chronological, nor does it provide perfect dialogue or neat scenes.
And while this book is predominantly nonfiction, parts have been fictionalized to varying degrees. The first is that they are real people, although I have not used their real names. There are a few things you should know before you meet Claire, Ana, and Patrick.
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