Two books by Nunez

Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag ~ by Sigrid Nunez, 2014, memoir, 128 pages

Sigrid Nunez was an aspiring writer when she first met Susan Sontag, already a legendary figure known for her polemical essays, blinding intelligence, and edgy personal style.  Sontag introduced Nunez to her son, the writer David Rieff, and the two began dating.  Soon Nunez moved into the apartment that Rieff and Sontag shared.  As Sontag told Nunez, “Who says we have to live like everyone else?”

Sontag’s influence on Nunez, who went on to become a successful novelist, would be profound.  Described by Nunez as “a natural mentor” who saw educating others as both a moral obligation and a source of endless pleasure, Sontag inevitably infected those around her with her many cultural and intellectual passions.  In this poignant, intimate memoir, Nunez speaks of her gratitude for having had, as an early model, “someone who held such an exalted, unironic view of the writer’s vocation.”

Published more than six years after Sontag’s death, Sempre Susan is a startlingly truthful portrait of this outsized personality, who made being an intellectual a glamorous occupation.

What Are You Going Through ~ by Sigrid Nunez, 2021, literary fiction, 224 pages

A woman describes a series of encounters she has with various people in the ordinary course of her life:  an ex she runs into by chance at a public forum, an Airbnb owner unsure how to interact with her guests, a stranger who seeks help comforting his elderly mother, a friend of her youth now hospitalized with terminal cancer.  In each of these people the woman finds a common need:  the urge to talk about themselves and to have an audience to their experiences.  The narrator orchestrates this chorus of voices for the most part as a passive listener, until one of them makes an extraordinary request, drawing her into an intense and transformative experience of her own.

In this novel, Nunez brings wisdom, humor, and insight about human connection and the changing nature of relationships in our times.  It's a surprising story about empathy and the unusual ways one person can help another through hardship.