And the relationship between the author and the dog becomes quite involved, as the dog becomes in some ways a substitute for her lost friend. This becomes awkward, as her apartment building does not permit dogs. Somehow that translated into the dog becoming hers after his suicide. He mentioned to his wife (the current one, #3) that the author loved animals and lived alone. Before he died, her friend had adopted a Great Dane.
She was a friend of his first wife, hated by his second wife, and acquainted with but not close to his third wife. This friend, a fellow writer and former teacher (and lover) of hers, had been part of her life for decades. Written in the first person, the author reveals she is dealing with the death by suicide of an unnamed friend. One reviewer called Sigrid Nunez prose “spare.” I’ll repeat: The Friend is a brilliant novel. Winner of the 2018 National Book Award, The Friend is a brilliant novel about a relationship between a woman and a man…or a woman and the man’s dog…or a woman and the art of writing…or all of the above and other things as well.
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