This dual profession is shared by all her friends, including the one she is mourning – a charming, unashamedly old-fashioned sexist professor, a blatant womaniser who has married three times (mostly his students) and had countless affairs (mostly with students). The unnamed first-person narrator is a writer and teacher of creative writing. While the dog is very interesting (he likes books), the novel is mainly about writers and writing. That is more or less the entire plot of this novel. Reluctantly the narrator takes Apollo, becomes attached to him and manages to persuade her landlord to allow her to keep him in her small apartment. He takes his own life and his dog is left without a home. According to one interview I read, an editor anticipated that the presence of a dog as a significant character in the novel would make it attractive to a lot of dog owners.Īpollo, a Great Dane, is the friend of the title, but the friend is also the dog’s former owner, a lifelong close friend of the narrator.

So what is the magic in this particular novel that won attention, quite late in the career of its author? Probably nothing much that isn’t in her other novels – apart, possibly, from this: a dog. But until The Friend became a surprise success and winner of the National Book Award in 2018, she was not one of the famous American writers – that handful of stars we all read, not just because they’re very good but because they’re very famousand very well-marketed. She is a 68-year-old writer who has published several novels and won a number of prizes. I had never heard of Sigrid Nunez before getting this book, but I wish I had.

The friend by sigrid nunez review