![]() ![]() The narrator’s musings arise without preface. The Friend is more of a one-sided conversation via stream of consciousness rather than a plotted story with structured characters. Through therapy and ultimately confronting her complicated feelings for her old friend in writing, the vocation that first brought them together, she finds a semblance of peace in the face of uncertainty lying in wait for her and the dog. In their shared loss and looming eviction from an apartment complex that prohibits dogs, the narrator considers the impact and memories her mentor left behind as her existence unwittingly evolves around his old and now her new pet-a living, breathing specter of the man they both lost-and she sinks into depression. ![]() Per his final wishes, she suddenly inherits his Great Dane, Apollo. After her best friend and mentor struggles with his aging body and waning relevance and ultimately takes his own life, the narrator languishes in her confusion, anger and sadness to the point she fears talking about him to others and misses deadlines for the book he encouraged her to write. ![]() ![]() Sigrid Nunez’s The Friend examines the existential vagaries of life and death through its narrator’s mournful, pondering perspective. ![]()
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