Ann Patchett almost binned Aussie Meg Mason’s novel. Now, they’re ‘profound friends’

Authors Meg Mason (right), 46, and Ann Patchett, 60, became friends in early 2021 after a repeated exchange of thank-you notes. They voice-note each other most days to talk about life, death and nut roast.

Ann Patchett (left) and Meg Mason at Gertrude and Alice bookshop: “She’s [Ann] so much herself – she doesn’t code-switch between talking to Jill Biden or the air-conditioning man.”Credit: James Brickwood.

Meg: My US editor wrote saying Ann wanted to blurb my novel, Sorrow and Bliss. Possibly I blacked out. The Ann Patchett? The Pulitzer Prize finalist whose books are everywhere through my house? It was so exciting, but also ridiculous – Ann Patchett blurbing this gently selling first novel by an unknown writer. So I sent her a thank-you note. Then she emailed to say, “Thanks for your thank-you note.” So I spent literally four days composing an email saying, “No, thank you.” She wrote straight back. I replied; then she replied again, two minutes later. I was like, “What is happening here? I’ll have to be the one that stops it for her.” So – feeling unbelievably rude – I didn’t write back. I thought she was just being polite.

Then she made one of her Parnassus Books TikTok-sensation videos about my book, so I had to write again [Parnassus Books is the name of Patchett’s bookshop in Nashville]. She wrote back, and it never stopped.

One day, I emailed her a voice note [an audio recording that can be sent electronically] and that became our thing. Sometimes we think it might become unsustainable, but here we are, three years in, and she’s one of my most intimate friends; there’s nothing I wouldn’t tell her. There’s something about that voice-note form – it’s the most joyful part of friendship, the talking and the listening, without any of the logistical hassles. Every day, when I come downstairs and see she’s sent one, it’s like a gift. She’ll explain her roofing installation issues; or that she’s taking her mother to the grocery store; or that she has to keep her voice down because Tom Hanks is napping in the guest room. She’s incredibly warm and funny – even funnier than in her books.

‘That voice-note form is the most joyful part of friendship, the talking and the listening, without any of the logistical hassles. Every day, when I come downstairs and see she’s sent one, it’s like a gift.’

Meg Mason

Professionally, she’s given me confidence – the ability to think, “I have a right to be in the room.” When she wrote Tom Lake, every day she’d update me on what she’d written; or talk about her treadmill desk; or tell me about the characters. Can you imagine?

Of course, the fame thing was very strange at the start. It helped that she’s so much herself – she doesn’t code-switch between talking to Jill Biden or the air-conditioning man. She’s also exceptionally loyal and unbelievably generous. She has no artifice: if she doesn’t want to do something, she just says no. Maybe she’ll add, “I don’t want to do that.” Somehow, it’s very peaceful, because it’s truthful.

In 2021, I went to stay with her in Nashville. I was terribly nervous, but she said, “We are not doing that” – and incredibly, I was fine from that moment on. She was exactly as I imagined. Moderately taller. It was not strange in any way – no feeling of “There’s nothing in this house that I eat” or “This washing powder smells weird” – just, “Oh, I feel like I’m at home.” At one point, we went to Parnassus and Ann had her dog, Sparky, with her and she had to clean up after him in this car park, right next to this massive grease trap. And she was crouching down, scooping up his poo, and I was like, “OK. I’m over the fame thing.”

Ann: Meg’s US editor sent me the galley of Sorrow and Bliss. I get so many galleys, and I was so irritated I thought, “I’m not even looking at it. I’m just taking it right out to the recycling bin.” As I walked down the back stairs, I opened it up and as I got to the driveway, I started reading. I stood in the driveway, then I went back upstairs, sat down and read it. I absolutely loved it.

So I blurbed it, and Meg wrote a proper, paper thank-you note, so I emailed her, and then we went back and forward like a couple of very polite cartoon chipmunks. At some point, she sent me a voice note. I didn’t know they existed. So I sent her one back and then we fell into this kind of psychiatric analysis, talking and listening, back and forth, every day.

She makes me feel known. The quality of her attention is like, “This person’s really seeing me.” We’re both always saying, “This is the most boring voice note ever made, I am so sorry”, but whenever she says it, I think, “What are you talking about?” I have never known ­anyone who comes out with so many brilliant, sharp, often hysterically funny observations.

‘Since we became friends, I wrote Tom Lake. And the form of that book is telling someone, verbally, the story of your life – which is exactly what I’ve done with Meg.’

Ann Patchett

You can’t really be profound friends with a writer if you don’t like their work. And she had already reached me in spirit through Sorrow and Bliss: that was the bedrock. But she is just so smart, so funny, so quick. She can organise all the index cards of your life and her life, then match them up. She’ll be like, “This is my mother’s nut-roast recipe” and I’m like, “Oh, thank god, I did not know what to make for dinner tonight.” Now I make it twice a month.

Professionally, I’ve been in this career longer, so I can say, “Don’t fall for that, girlfriend.” Creatively, what she sees as her own lack of confidence I see as part of the journey. I can say, “I know that place, and there you are, but there you will not stay.” Since we became friends, I wrote Tom Lake. And the form of that book is telling someone, verbally, the story of your life – which is exactly what I’ve done with Meg. So we’ll give her all the credit for that.

When she came to Nashville, it was like being a child and meeting your penpal: “Oh, it’s you. I know you.” We sat around, talked. She read two books. I know she’s already ­feeling sad that I’m leaving [Sydney, where she attended the Writer’s Festival] soon. I respect it – it’s tender. But also, my whole life, going to see my father until he died, he would pick me up at the airport and say, “I’ve been so happy thinking you were coming and now the sand is starting to run through the hourglass.” So I’m always saying to Meg, “No. This is what we have. Right now, today.” Sometimes she’ll still say something like, “I’m trying to imagine how I’m going to feel when you’re dead.” And I’m like, “What the hell!?” And she says, “But I won’t be able to bear it.” And I’m like, “Huh. Well. I guess I’ll be fine with it.”

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