Good Reads / Community Library Notes
What Are You Going Through?
Sigrid Nunez
Review by Priscilla Comen
What Are You Going Through?
Sigrid Nunez
Review by Priscilla Comen
What Are You Going Through?, by Sigrid Nunez, is about relationships and connections of one person to another. In the beginning, the narrator goes to hear a learned man speak about the end of the world as we know it. He offers no hope of surviving. He urges women not to have children and to accept their fate. The narrator has a glass of wine at a bar before returning to her rented room. We learn the speaker was her ex-husband. He wrote her a note saying he was pleased to see her in the audience.
The narrator is in town to visit a friend in the hospital who has cancer. The friend has a daughter she calls a monster—they don’t get along. When the mother asks the daughter if she wants to have the experimental treatment, her daughter says it’s her choice.
By going to a gym regularly, the narrator meets a woman who is saddened by the loss of her beauty and her trim body. Once stared at by men and valued at parties, she complains about the mirrors in the gym, the bright lights, and her inability to lose weight. She had wanted to be an artist and took classes, but when the teacher criticized her work, the woman thought she was jealous. Men praised it and she thought they were coming on to her before she gave up on her art.
The narrator never liked romance novels but liked stories of women in love who killed themselves for lack of it. As in DH Lawrence’s novels. Author Nunez brings out feelings in her characters that most readers can relate to. Her friend in the hospital won’t write about death—it can be a bore, she says. The narrator finds a cat in her room and hears the cat’s entire life story. In her apartment house lives an eighty-six year old woman whose son visits her occasionally. The narrator sits with him on a bench outside and they speak about his mother. She hates getting phone calls from scammers and robos who try to get personal and financial information from her. They say her grandson is in jail and needs money. She says, “Good, I never liked him” and hangs up. The narrator agrees to visit his mother to check on her, but finds she hates those visits and is pleased when the mother is moved away. The son had died of a heart attack.
The narrator’s friend says she has obtained pills that will help her end her life and asks her friend to be with her at the end. She plans to go to a lovely house on the New England coast and to make their time like a pleasant vacation. The narrator is not to tell anyone but she tells one person. At the house the narrator describes it in detail. When her friend realizes she has forgotten the pills, they return to her home to get them. “Chemo-brain” the friend says as an excuse.
In the New England town they see a poster announcing that the narrator’s ex-husband is going to speak on the same topic as last time she heard him. She’s not going to go hear him again. He’s the one she has told about her friend’s decision. The friend can’t read any longer, none of her old favorites appeal to her. The narrator has breakfast with her ex and he tells her people are idiots for not doing anything about climate change. He tells them the truth in his articles and books.
The friend who wanted to commit suicide talks about her old teachers from grade school. She loved them and they made her feel loved, yet she had not been a good teacher, with no patience with her students. Until she loses her voice, the friend talks about her terrible relationship with her daughter. The narrator is always hungry, eats all that’s on her plate while her friend barely eats anything. The friend wants a beautiful death and California law makes it legal to assist a dying person. Author Nunez creates this story of love and friendship and loyalty. Find this interesting tale on the new fiction shelf of your local library.
The narrator is in town to visit a friend in the hospital who has cancer. The friend has a daughter she calls a monster—they don’t get along. When the mother asks the daughter if she wants to have the experimental treatment, her daughter says it’s her choice.
By going to a gym regularly, the narrator meets a woman who is saddened by the loss of her beauty and her trim body. Once stared at by men and valued at parties, she complains about the mirrors in the gym, the bright lights, and her inability to lose weight. She had wanted to be an artist and took classes, but when the teacher criticized her work, the woman thought she was jealous. Men praised it and she thought they were coming on to her before she gave up on her art.
The narrator never liked romance novels but liked stories of women in love who killed themselves for lack of it. As in DH Lawrence’s novels. Author Nunez brings out feelings in her characters that most readers can relate to. Her friend in the hospital won’t write about death—it can be a bore, she says. The narrator finds a cat in her room and hears the cat’s entire life story. In her apartment house lives an eighty-six year old woman whose son visits her occasionally. The narrator sits with him on a bench outside and they speak about his mother. She hates getting phone calls from scammers and robos who try to get personal and financial information from her. They say her grandson is in jail and needs money. She says, “Good, I never liked him” and hangs up. The narrator agrees to visit his mother to check on her, but finds she hates those visits and is pleased when the mother is moved away. The son had died of a heart attack.
The narrator’s friend says she has obtained pills that will help her end her life and asks her friend to be with her at the end. She plans to go to a lovely house on the New England coast and to make their time like a pleasant vacation. The narrator is not to tell anyone but she tells one person. At the house the narrator describes it in detail. When her friend realizes she has forgotten the pills, they return to her home to get them. “Chemo-brain” the friend says as an excuse.
In the New England town they see a poster announcing that the narrator’s ex-husband is going to speak on the same topic as last time she heard him. She’s not going to go hear him again. He’s the one she has told about her friend’s decision. The friend can’t read any longer, none of her old favorites appeal to her. The narrator has breakfast with her ex and he tells her people are idiots for not doing anything about climate change. He tells them the truth in his articles and books.
The friend who wanted to commit suicide talks about her old teachers from grade school. She loved them and they made her feel loved, yet she had not been a good teacher, with no patience with her students. Until she loses her voice, the friend talks about her terrible relationship with her daughter. The narrator is always hungry, eats all that’s on her plate while her friend barely eats anything. The friend wants a beautiful death and California law makes it legal to assist a dying person. Author Nunez creates this story of love and friendship and loyalty. Find this interesting tale on the new fiction shelf of your local library.