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Sigrid Nunez Is the recipient of many honors and awards and this particular book, The Friend, won the national book award in 2018.

(Nunez does not use a tilde over the second n in her last name, but it’s pronounced as if one is there: NOON-Yez or NOON-Yeth.)

The book is about death, grief, friendship, art, memory, and love. What’s not to like? I liked parts of it quite well. But at other times, I felt bored or even put off by the subject matter. Some of it is a bit cringey. And the deceased friend is not exactly admirable.

The unnamed main character unexpectedly loses her best friend and mentor (with whom she was more than a little in love) to suicide. and accepts the care of his very large Great Dane. The dog seems to be traumatized, too, by his owners disappearance. The dog and the woman must share a 500 square-foot rent-controlled apartment. The dog seems to symbolize the friendship and/or love, and the woman refuses to be separated from the dog for more than brief periods of time. This is not a straightforward narrative, but rather a pastiche of vignettes, digressions, and anecdotes with numerous allusions to literature, writers, and philosophical ideas about writing, life, and death. 

Again, there was much that I liked, but it didn’t hold my interest as much as I’d expected and wished. I’m curious about the movie, though. Naomi Watts plays the main character. I think I’d like to see that.

This is #38 of the 100 books I aim to read in 2025.