Oct 7, 2026 · 23 min · 11 segments
Amy Chozick talks with Mary Calvi and answers questions from readers about her debut novel "With Friends Like You." The psychological thriller was voted a Club Calvi Readers' Choice. It's about an…
Amy ChozickGuest
Mary CalviHostDanielleHostaudiobook.
I couldn't explain it, not even to Roman, what it's like to feel that connection to Daisy, to anyone, and then watch them just disappear into darkness.
Friendships end, he'd tell me, not understanding at all.
There was that girl.
What's her name? You met in the locker room at Blink and wouldn't stop talking about her, and then you never talked about her again? With Daisy, it was different.
The one I thought was going to last.
We hadn't grown apart so much as mental illness and addiction had ripped us apart.
I'd spent a lot of years pretending it was just another intense, fleeting friendship, but in my heart, I knew it was more.
I thought of all the emails I wrote to Daisy over the years that bounced back, asking her to tell me where she was, wishing she would appear out of nowhere and tell me it was all going to be okay.
I even started to write to her about my life, how I'd struggled to write anything new, how I took a job, how I met a guy.
I imagined that if we'd stayed in touch, we'd text 7,000 times a day, send each other memes, FaceTime, and stop ourselves from making regrettable sample sale purchases.
We'd go weeks, months, without seeing each other and still know the most mundane details of each other's lives.
The dry cleaner who ruined a favorite cardigan.
The period cramps.
The lucky 20 I found on the F train.
I'd laugh at night, texting under the covers, and Roman would ask me what was so funny, and I'd tell him he wouldn't get it.
Because he wouldn't.
No one except Daisy would.
The more the memory of Daisy and the yearning to have that kind of deep friendship in my life nagged at me, the more I had to pull it.
I sat beside Roman, close this time.
He knew me well enough to know that I wouldn't let this go.
In those first weeks home with Holden, Roman would hear me cry in the bathroom and ask if I needed anything.
I always said no.
What could he do? But now, I needed something.
I need this, I say.
audiobook.
I couldn't explain it, not even to Roman, what it's like to feel that connection to Daisy, to anyone, and then watch them just disappear into darkness.
Friendships end, he'd tell me, not understanding at all.
There was that girl.
What's her name? You met in the locker room at Blink and wouldn't stop talking about her, and then you never talked about her again? With Daisy, it was different.
The one I thought was going to last.
We hadn't grown apart so much as mental illness and addiction had ripped us apart.
I'd spent a lot of years pretending it was just another intense, fleeting friendship, but in my heart, I knew it was more.
I thought of all the emails I wrote to Daisy over the years that bounced back, asking her to tell me where she was, wishing she would appear out of nowhere and tell me it was all going to be okay.
I even started to write to her about my life, how I'd struggled to write anything new, how I took a job, how I met a guy.
I imagined that if we'd stayed in touch, we'd text 7,000 times a day, send each other memes, FaceTime, and stop ourselves from making regrettable sample sale purchases.
We'd go weeks, months, without seeing each other and still know the most mundane details of each other's lives.
The dry cleaner who ruined a favorite cardigan.
The period cramps.
The lucky 20 I found on the F train.
I'd laugh at night, texting under the covers, and Roman would ask me what was so funny, and I'd tell him he wouldn't get it.
Because he wouldn't.
No one except Daisy would.
The more the memory of Daisy and the yearning to have that kind of deep friendship in my life nagged at me, the more I had to pull it.
I sat beside Roman, close this time.
He knew me well enough to know that I wouldn't let this go.
In those first weeks home with Holden, Roman would hear me cry in the bathroom and ask if I needed anything.
I always said no.
What could he do? But now, I needed something.
I need this, I say.
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