"The Friend" by Sigrid Nunez

 A teacher of creative writing inherits a dog from a life-long friend and colleague who has committed suicide. The book, not so much a novel as a gentle ramble, follows the developing relationship between woman and dog as she learns to care for it (a great Dane is an small apartment) and simultaneously to grieve for her friend.

The book has some advice on writing:

• "Because it's all about the rhythm, you said. Good sentences start with a beat." (Pt 1)
• "The mother's old fur coat is the kind of detail writing teachers like to point out to their students, one of those telling details ... that are found in abundance in life but are mostly absent from student fiction." (Pt 1)
• "It's become entrenched, hasn't it. This idea that what writers do is essentially shameful and that we're all somehow suspect characters. ...Can you imagine a dance student feeling that way about the New York City Ballet? Or young athletes despising Olympic champions?" (Pt 11)
• "To become a professional writer in our society you have to be privileged to begin with, and the feeling is that privileged people shouldn't be writing anymore ... because that only furthers the agenda of white supremacy and the patriarchy." (Pt 11)

It also has some poignant insights into live, death and the love of dogs:

• "The dead dwell in the conditional tense of the unreal." (Pt 1)
• "That's what age is, isn't it? Slo-mo castration." (Pt 1)
• "Graffiti on Philosophy Hall: The examined life ain't worth it either." (Pt 3)
• "He doesn't like having his paws touched, though the brat in me keeps trying." (Pt 7)

A meander through life and death, dogs and writing. March 2021; 212 pages

This review was written by 
the author of Motherdarling