The Friend

The Friend is a novel by the American writer Sigrid Nunez published by Riverhead Books in 2018. The book concerns an unnamed novelist who adopts a Great Dane that belonged to a deceased friend and mentor. Writing and publishing Nunez was inspired to write the novel in part due to acquaintances and friends convinced their lives would end by suicide. A friend of Nunez's died by suicide as she was writing The Friend. Nunez also drew inspiration from Elizabeth Hardwick's novel Sleepless Nights. The novel contains autobiographical elements, and is written in the stream of consciousness style, which Nunez has said allowed for "essay writing" and "meditation" within the book. Plot summary The unnamed narrator, a writer living in Manhattan, recalls the life and recent suicide of her best friend and mentor, also unnamed. Addressing him in the second person, she recounts her friend's three troubled marriages and his career as a college professor. The narrator reveals that the main point of contention between her and her friend involved his illicit affairs with his female students. The narrator meets with her friend's third wife, who asks her to adopt her friend's senior Great Dane, Apollo. The wife, whom the narrator calls "Wife Three", explains that Apollo appears to be in mourning and has been temporarily placed in a kennel. Recalling the story of Hachikō, the narrator reluctantly agrees to take Apollo in.