Between a nasty infection in my chest, a vicious wasp sting on my son’s ring finger, and a skin infection that left a constellation of flaming red sores across the right side of my teenage daughter’s face, I’ve spent a fair bit of September in a doctor’s office. The upside of sickness was a chance to read books and watch films, two things I don’t do nearly enough of. Kerry Clare’s latest book, Asking For A Friend hit home in so many ways. Just as relatable, was Julia Louis Dreyfus’, You Hurt My Feelings. What I was drawn to in both, and what I’m mostly drawn to, is material that’s familiar and accessible and that helps us better understand and connect with the human experience. I related viscerally to Clare’s portrayal of post-natal anxiety and the unspooling that her protagonists undergo in early motherhood. And watching Louis Dreyfus cry on camera after her character overhears her husband, her greatest champion, admit that he hates the book she’s written, is shattering. The characters’ beautiful, relatable and unavoidable flaws make the stories so true to life that we can’t help but reflect on our own life experiences. “The secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets,” writes Arundhati Roy. “The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don’t deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don’t surprise you with the unforeseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in.”