The Friend by Sigrid Nunez

The Friend by Sigrid Nunez came my way by a recommendation from Suzanne (her review here and her direct rec to me here), and I was excited by the Great Dane on the cover, so I waited patiently for many months for this to become available through Libby. 

In this book, our unnamed protagonist is dealing with the death of her writing mentor and it turns out that her mentor has also left her his dog. Now, this would be all well and good except that this person doesn't own other dogs, lives in a small walk-up apartment in New York City, and the dog is a Great Dane. An elderly Great Dane with a chill personality, but a giant breed nonetheless.

The book is written in an unusual style. It's as if the narrator dumped out all the thoughts in her brain and then wrote a paragraph about each thought and put them in a vaguely chronological order. Some reviews call it stream of consciousness, but it's not really because each paragraph is largely coherent and ordered, but sometimes it feels like you're just skipping from one thought to the next. I don't know what to call it, but it felt like being inside someone's brain. 

I'd also like to say that this book delves deeply into two topics I think about a lot - writing as a vocation and taking care of a dog. I have rarely felt as seen and represented as I was by this book despite the fact that I've never been paid to write a word, I have never lived in NYC, and my dog is hardly a giant breed. Despite that, I felt like somehow Nunez was writing directly to me and my experiences. It's also a book about grief, but without the grief taking away all the light that ever was. It's not exactly a funny book, but there are humorous elements that make it a true delight. 

Like Suzanne, I am not sure if this is the book for everyone. But it certainly was a book for me.

4.5/5 stars

Lines of note:

It’s a cliché, of course: we talk about the dead in order to remember them, in order to keep them, in the only way we can, alive. But I have found that the more people say about you, for example those who spoke at the memorial—people who loved you, people who knew you well, people who are very good with words—the further you seem to slip away, the more like a hologram you become. (location 202)

Grief is so hard to navigate. 

I know people who strongly object to pet-naming. They are of the same ilk as those who dislike the very idea of calling an animal a pet. Owner they don’t much like, either; master makes them see red. What irks these people is the notion of dominion: the dominion over animals that humankind has claimed as a God-given right since Adam, and which, in their eyes, has always amounted to nothing less than enslavement. (location 634)

We are guilty of this. Zelda the Cat and Hannah the Dog are the girls, the quadrupeds, or the animals, but never pets. We are their friends, humans, and carers, but never owner or master. Words matter. 

These days I spend so much time walking Apollo I can’t imagine going out just to walk by myself. (location 1039)

A walk by myself is a waste when I could be letting Hannah have a sniff outside.

On the fate of the multitude of unwanted dogs, Lucy reflects: They do us the honor of treating us like gods, and we respond by treating them like things. (location 1247)

I am definitely a god in Hannah's eyes. In Zelda's eyes, I am merely her food servant.

You want to know what you should write about. You’re afraid that whatever you write will be trivial, or just another version of something that’s already been said. But remember, there is at least one book in you that cannot be written by anyone else but you. My advice is to dig deep and find it. (location 1634)

This is such interesting advice to tell a writer. Do you really think everyone has a book in them? (Should my book be about Hannah?)

It’s not uncommon to wish to have known what a person you’ve come to love was like before you met them. It hurts, almost, not to have known what a beloved was like as a child. I have felt this way about every man I’ve ever been in love with, and about many close friends as well, and now it’s how I feel about Apollo. Not to have known him as a frisky young dog, to have missed his entire puppyhood! I don’t feel just sad, I feel cheated. Not even a photo to show what he was like. I have to make do with looking at harlequin Great Dane puppies in books, or online. (location 2068)

Oh, I would LOVE to know what Hannah looked like as a puppy. I bet she was SO CUTE. 

Reading Ackerley, I noticed that he sometimes uses the word person when referring to a dog. At first I thought this was a mistake. But, considering that he was one of the most careful writers in the world, I’d say this is unlikely. (location 2147)

My husband calls the girls people. "They're people, just not humans."