Kamila Shamsie’s latest novel chronicles the friendship of two women from their early teens through to middle age. Zahra is the daughter of a sports journalist and Maryam is due to inherit her father’s luxury leather goods business. We first meet them when they are 14-year-olds in 1980s Karachi hanging out at each other’s houses and obsessing over school cliques, boys and their love of Jackie Collins novels and George Michael. Humming in the background is the new political dawn represented by Benazir Bhutto after the death of the military dictator General Zia in a plane crash. Near the end of the school year, an impulsive moment at a party celebrating a democratic Pakistan has far-reaching consequences and leads to Maryam being packed off to boarding school.
The book then jumps to 2019, when our protagonists are in their 40s and living very different lives in London – Zahra is head of a civil liberties organisation and thorn in the side of the government, while Maryam is a successful venture capitalist. Despite their differing values, the pair remain close, meeting every Sunday for long walks on Primrose Hill, though their friendship is put to the test when a figure reappears from their past.
The voice actor Tania Rodrigues is the narrator, who draws a subtle contrast between Zahra and Maryam as callow, self-conscious teens and later as high-flying adults navigating their shared history and the incident that led to their separation as children. In exploring their complicated bond, Best of Friends provides a nuanced portrait of female friendship and the invisible forces that can drive women apart.
• Best of Friends is available from Bloomsbury, 10hr 8min.
Further listening
Dickens and Prince
Nick Hornby, Penguin Audio, 3hr 7min
The Fever Pitch author ponders his lifelong admiration for two cultural giants – musician Prince Rodgers Nelson and novelist Charles Dickens – and the unexpected parallels in their life and work. Read by Alex Jennings.
Beautiful World, Where Are You
Sally Rooney, Faber, 10hr 4min
Aoife McMahon reads the Normal People writer’s tale of two best friends from college and the men in their lives as they struggle with the pressures of love and adulthood.
