Reviewer: David C Dawson What we thought of it:
A friend bought me this book recently. My friend is a dog lover. I have two cats. The book is about a woman writer living in New York who is forced to take in an ageing Great Dane when its owner, her lifelong friend, kills himself.
My mother had recently died when my friend gave me the book.
It was the perfect choice of reading material. It’s only 200 pages long and I read it in one sitting as I remained confined to the house during lockdown, indulging my grief.
Nunez has captured the deep and dark emotions of grief in a way that no other writer has ever done for me. At one point she writes:
“Walking in Midtown, rush hour’s peak, people streaming in both directions, I find myself seething, ready to kill. Who are all these fucking people, and how is it fair, how is it even possible that all of them, these perfectly ordinary people should be alive?”
It was as though she had read my innermost thoughts about my mother’s death as I grumpily walked around the supermarket and put those thoughts on the page for me.
That’s not to say this is a sombre book. I have never owned a dog, but I can only conclude that Nunez has done. Her description of the central character’s developing relationship with a lumbering giant of an animal called Apollo, with its bad breath, flatulence and clumsiness through arthritis created a vivid image in my mind’s eye that stayed with me long after I’d closed the book. There is humour, pathos, anger, frustration, and so much love, inside this slim volume.
Nunez reflects on the nature of human relationships with a poignancy and accuracy I have rarely encountered in literature. It’s no wonder that The Friend won the 2018 National Book Award for Fiction in the US, and was shortlisted for the Dublin International Literary Award.
Highly recommended.
You’ll enjoy this if you like: My Dog Tulip by J R Ackerley
Avoid if you don’t like: suicide references
Ideal accompaniments: A four-legged friend
Genre: Divorce fiction, animal fiction
It was as though she had read my innermost thoughts about my mother’s death as I grumpily walked around the supermarket and put those thoughts on the page for me.
That’s not to say this is a sombre book. I have never owned a dog, but I can only conclude that Nunez has done. Her description of the central character’s developing relationship with a lumbering giant of an animal called Apollo, with its bad breath, flatulence and clumsiness through arthritis created a vivid image in my mind’s eye that stayed with me long after I’d closed the book. There is humour, pathos, anger, frustration, and so much love, inside this slim volume.
Nunez reflects on the nature of human relationships with a poignancy and accuracy I have rarely encountered in literature. It’s no wonder that The Friend won the 2018 National Book Award for Fiction in the US, and was shortlisted for the Dublin International Literary Award.
Highly recommended.
You’ll enjoy this if you like: My Dog Tulip by J R Ackerley
Avoid if you don’t like: suicide references
Ideal accompaniments: A four-legged friend
Genre: Divorce fiction, animal fiction
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