I read Sigrid Nunez’s The Friend a few years ago and although I enjoyed it I wasn’t nearly as impressed as many readers I trust so approached The Vulnerables with caution, particularly as it came billed as a pandemic novel featuring a parrot. Set during the spring of 2020, Nunez’s novel follows an unnamed writer as she finds her way through lockdown, taking up residence in a palatial apartment to care for an acquaintance’s macaw.
But how could any of this have really happened? I must be making it up.
Our narrator walks the deserted streets of New York, enjoying the unaccustomed solitude, spending as much time as she can away from her small apartment. It’s the early days of the pandemic, some have found themselves forced to stay put unexpectedly including one of her publisher friend’s authors, anxious about her parrot Eureka now that his caretaker has done a bunk back to his parents’ country home. Our narrator agrees to step in, entertained by this gorgeous playful creature, so responsive to her friendly overtures. When the bird’s original caretaker turns up again, chucked out by his parents, our narrator is resentful. They form an uneasy alliance eventually deepening into friendship. When lockdown is lifted, Eureka’s owner returns and it’s time for our narrator to go home.
Only when I was young did I believe that it was important to remember what happened in every novel I read. Now I know the truth: what matters is what you experience while reading, the states of feeling that the story evokes, the questions that rise to your mind, rather than the fictional event described.
Nunez’s novel is an absolute joy. Witty, erudite and wonderfully discursive, it’s packed with literary allusions, memories and stories about acquaintances and friends. Noting that Chekov’s idea to write a novel about his friends had no doubt been vetoed by them, our narrator gives her female friends pretty flower names to protect their identities while her resented roommate is named after a weed. Ageing, the modern world, the pandemic, climate change, friendship, writing and reading are just a smattering of the subjects our narrator muses on. Given the many references to the blurring of autobiography and fiction together with similarities to Nunez’s own life, it’s hard not to view this as a slice of autofiction although perhaps a personal meditation might be a better description. Any doubts I might have had about reading this one were swiftly dispelled: I loved it.
Virago Press: London 9780349018119 256 pages Hardback (read via NetGalley)
Lovely review Susan, I’m very keen to read this one. You know how much I enjoy a New York novel!
I do! Thank you, Cathy. I’m sure you’ll enjoy this one.
I have only one Sigrid Nunez, a feather on the breath of god. I’m not sure who raved about it on Twitter but it was enough for me to order it! Glad you loved this one. Her novels often appear to be quite short and I need more of this brevity in my reading life!
Not one I’ve read but I think I’ll try The Friend again after this one. Although discursive, she’s not a waffler!
This sounds wonderful. I’d love to read it. That quote about the reading experience pretty much sums up why I don’t reread when I absolutely loved a book and the reading experience.
That quote leapt off the page at me! I can’t recommend this one highly enough.
I’ve read four Nunez novels in the past but have been reluctant to pick this one up because of the pandemic thing ( I went through it; I don’t need to read about it ) But you’ve made it sound like it might actually be my kind of thing after all. Onto the next Wishlist it goes!
Delighted to hear that, Kim. I swore off pandemic novels which I could see coming down the tracks during lockdown but have since read several I’ve enjoyed very much.
I’ve just read another review by someone who hated it… so now I’m torn. lol. Maybe it’s one to borrow from the library rather than buy.
That sounds an excellent compromise!
Yay! Like you, I’ve enjoyed her other novels well enough but haven’t been blown away. But enjoyed enough to go back for more. Will look forward to this one.
This one really hit the spot for me while the others left me wondering what I was missing. Hope you enjoy it, Kate.
An appetising review which has tempted me. Especially in view of that quote.
Isn’t it great? Certainly fits my reading experience.
🙂
I’m quite happy with pandemic novels, so that wouldn’t put me off. But the review in the Sunday Times was not good though, which did a little, so I’m glad to hear you really did enjoy it.
Ah, sorry to hear that. It seemed rather different from the others I’ve read by her so perhaps that was why the reviewer wasn’t so keen. I’m getting used to the pandemic theme!
I didn’t like The Friend as much as so many others did either and this sounded sort of similar so I wasn’t drawn to pick it up. But now I might be interested again!
It was the discursiveness of this one that so appealed – lots of literary allusions. I hope you enjoy it if you do decide to read it.
This was my first Nunez and I really enjoyed it too! I found the material about her growing fondness for Eureka very moving; she’s obviously interested in human-animal relationships and what they reveal about us, given the canine focus of The Friend (which I now want to read).
I loved those Eureka passages. Such a playful, intelligent animal – just what was needed during her solitary lockdown.
This sounds great! I enjoyed The Friend and I love a New York setting, so very keen to read this!
I hope you love it as much as I did.
I’ve read a Pat Barker book with a parrot and really liked that too. With Nunez, I’ve only read one, and many years ago, but I have the idea that I would enjoy them all. Curious that you’ve enjoyed this one SO much that you’re going to try again with The Friend.
I wonder how I’ll get on this time around! This one’s a very different novel.
I don’t know that I’m ready for pandemic novels yet, but I do love that quote!
Spot on, isn’t it!
I love that quote about reading, she captures it perfectly. This does seem to reflect on such a range of themes which makes it sound very interesting and it seems a pandemic novel not going down the usual route either.
It’s perfect, isn’t it? It’s those wide-ranging themes that make this one so appealing, and the lovely Eureka, of course.
I have seen a lot of enthusiasm for this writer, and I’ve been wondering how I would get on with her. I certainly like the sound of the themes covered here.
Lots of bloggers and other readers I know love her novels but this is the first one that really clicked with me.
Ohhh this does sound good – glad I have it on my TBR too!
Winging its way on to my books of the year list.