The Nature of Things

Sigrid Nunez's new book features an unnamed and undescribed narrator's conversations and interactions with a number of people she comes in contact with. People in her apartment building, people at her gym, random people that she meets, an ex-lover. I say the narrator is undescribed but we know she is a writer in late middle age and she's having trouble writing. She gathers these stories of the people that she talks with and perhaps if she's lucky, they will someday evolve into a narrative that the writer can put on paper.  The main conversation, or series of conversations, that she has is with a friend who is terminally ill with cancer. The friend had fought cancer for years and had been in remission for a while but now the disease has come back and the medical profession holds out no hope for her recovery. The friend has decided to take her own life but she wants someone to be with her or at least be in the next room when she does it. She has chosen the narrator as tha...

A writer's lifelong friend and mentor (also a writer) unexpectedly commits suicide. He leaves behind a 180 pound harlequin Great Dane. His third wife, now his widow, informs the writer that her dead friend had expressed the desire that if anything happened to him, she should take the dog. The writer lives in a 500 square foot apartment on the fifth floor of an apartment building in New York. Her lease forbids dogs. Nevertheless, she decides to take the dog. How could she not? Philosophizing and magical thinking ensue. The end. There you have the gist of this rather strange little book which just won this year's National Book Award for Fiction. The heroine of the story is that unnamed writer who rents the tiny apartment and who takes in the giant dog. Not only is the heroine unnamed, none of the characters in the book (with three notable exceptions) are named. They are all referred to by their role titles: Wife No. 1, Wife No. 2, Wife No. 3, student, landlord, professor, etc. Th...