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What does it mean to tackle the end of life? Almost autobiographical, Sigrid Nunez's latest novel "What Are You Going Through" is a series of musings on life, death and everything in between by an aging female writer as she provides support to a friend dying slowly from cancer. Artistically wrought, each sentence feels almost tortured in its simplicity yet resounding depth. Overall, Nunez questions the tenuousness of life and the impact we can have on each other through the simple art of conversation. Soothing yet unsettling, it's an interesting concept but still felt overworked.

At 224 pages, 𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘈𝘳𝘦 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘎𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘛𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 is a quick but intense, thought-provoking, and beautifully written book with both heartbreak and humor.

The unnamed narrator, a writer and teacher offers keen and sometimes sardonic impressions of the people she encounters, mostly older women, although my favorite of her exchanges might be with a kitten at an Airbnb. She also agrees to visit an elderly neighborhood who, after a stay at the hospital becomes so bombastic her son jokes he fears Fox News implanted a chip in her brain.

For the beginning of the book, most of the descriptions are interesting and colorful but at arm’s length—until a dear friend, a former roommate, asks for a significant and weighty favor that makes her a key actor in the story.

While I don’t think this is a book that will appeal to all readers, I think fans of character-driven literary fiction, and of course those who enjoyed Nunez’s previous book, 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘍𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥, will appreciate the artistry of the book and it’s attention to themes of aging and mortality, particularly for women.

This incredibly quiet book reminds us that not everything important is said in loud voices. The story isn’t complex. A woman helps a terminally ill friends through her last few months of life. The story juxtaposes with a lecture the healthy woman goes to about the dire state of the world’s climate—also foretelling death of the planet. As with everyone’s life, there are emergencies to be dealt with in this case a flood in the patient’s apartment. I’d call this a “thinking person’s book” and while it won’t be for everyone, those who are captured by the quiet intelligence of the Nunez’s writing will savor the messages of life and love.

𝐀𝐧 𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐧 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐩𝐬𝐞 𝐦𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐞: 𝐅𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐨𝐦 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐨𝐨 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦. 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐛𝐞 𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐬.

This truly is a smart book, as summarized the narrator describes “a series of encounters she has with various people in the ordinary course of her life.” These aren’t stories about people dying with dignity, or mothering their difficult (now adult) child with ease and flawless devotion. Characters are pissed off to be stricken with terminal cancer, or aging without grace. Let’s face it, despite commercials and stories to the contrary, age is often a lonely island, that person in the mirror, if you’re brave enough to confront them, can look like a terrifying, rotting creature. For the emotions our narrator’s friend is dealing with alone, I give this book four stars. It’s not generally like the movies, where people come to accept their cancer (or other illnesses) with grace and almost religious fervor. It is monstrously painful, some sick cosmic joke or betrayal. Come to think of it, old age too starts to feel like a horror story. Maybe it’s different if you have buckets of money to maintain your youth, I’ll never know. “What a nasty trick life had played on her”, I think that is the saddest story ever told!

People need to talk, the dam inside of us has to find its release and the writer in this book is an outlet. That we can find humor in our human suffering because “if you don’t laugh you’ll cry” can be applied to nearly everything the universe dumps on us. Life is made of beautiful things- sure but there will be disappointments, ingrates, liars, heartbreaks, affairs, illnesses, exasperating children, torment, pain and general chaos that we likely will never understand. It is almost an obligation for being alive, suffering unpredictable torments. It’s made so much worse when people with ‘good intentions’ try to make light of one’s pain, rather than just giving them the space to endure it, bitterly or not.

There are repulsive, slightly threatening encounters women tell expressing what it feels like to be a woman from being subjected to catcalls to being invisible. Beauty, ugliness, youth, age nothing holds steady, not for anyone.

When the friend from her youth makes a request, it’s bigger than she imagined, no longer can she remain the audience. It’s as if life has completed a strange circle, a conversation that began in her college years coming to fruition. It may well be an experience that “shows her the way”, a unique adventure.

I chuckled about the becoming a better person through yoga reflections, someone had to say it. What smacked me is the idea of a life lived in health dragging out the agony of disease. Life and it’s horrific ironies! Time that drags or speeds away, hostilities, memories, pity, and the happiness of childhood- so much to rehash, all of it rushing back towards the end.

I laughed a lot reading the stories about everyone she encounters, but I often felt a mean pinch in my heart because some of the telling is painfully sad. I wonder if I would have read this book the same if I were younger, I feel like having been wrung out in life makes it far easier to relate to the intelligence within, even when it thumbs its nose at wisdom, it manages to be wise. How is it I have never read this author’s sharp writing before? I enjoyed being her audience.

Published September 8, 2020 Available Now

Penguin Group

Riverhead Books

Sigrid Nunez allows every reader a world to peer into- a small chasm that is flooded with a light that she provides, like a torch in a cellar. She is brilliant as ever in this book as she gives infinite empathy to characters that don’t always deserve it, but are always allowed it anyway,

Absolutely beautiful. A meandering of voices and situations that will linger with you long after you finish the last page. To be savored and enjoyed. Shows the power of empathy and rings with the truth of what we're dealing with today. A must read. Happy reading!

What would you do if a friend asked you to watch her die by her own hand? That's the question the unnamed narrator must face in this thoughtful novel. Her friend, also unnamed, is dying and would like to leave the hospital, rent a house, do a few last things, and then commit suicide. While this might appear, based on the description provided by the publisher, to be a novel about euthanasia, it's more about how one can look back at one's life as one ages. The narrator's thoughts meander - although never far. You'll have a much better sense of her than of her friend. It's not a plot driven novel but it will make you think. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. For fans of literary fiction,

"What Are You Going Through" is my favorite book of this wretched year -- a genuine balm amidst the stress and unrelenting sadness. Nunez's subtly powerful novel masterfully balances optimism and dread, musings on life and death, joy and sorrow. The narrator's interactions -- most significantly with an old friend grappling with a momentous decision; plus her doomsaying ex-husband, an Airbnb host, some engaging strangers, and a talking cat -- are limned with enlightenment and inspiration. This short and poignant book evokes the title of one of Joni Mitchell's best sings: "Lesson In Survival." I will be reading it again very soon. Highest recommendation!

A somewhat meandering but ultimately moving book about mortality and human connection. I had issues with the narrative structure initially, but warmed to the book and its characters as its focus settled on the protagonist and her dying friend. A 3.5 for me. Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this title.

This novel did not work for me on many levels. I found the writing stale, and the plot hard to follow (what little there was). Not naming the characters (her friend, her ex, her, Woman A, etc) as they relate the stories, it felt clinical in some ways. It's not often I don't finish a book, but this is going in the unfinished pile . . .

Sigrid Nunez has fashioned a novel that takes on unanticipated meaning in these pandemic days of distance from friends and strangers alike. The reader is back in a world where it is possible and usual to interact with acquaintances face to face . It is possible but less usual to find a relationship deepening in a surprisingly intimate direction and to a level that challenges each person's humanity. The Friend shows relationship through one prism. What You Are Going Through moves to a different view and the reader is well rewarded by minimal foreknowledge of the goings on.

Nunez quotes Simone Weil, “The love of our neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able to say, ‘What are you going through?’” But she could have just as easily quoted Sartre, “Hell is other people.”
Nunez conveys the daily anguish of attempting to communicate with those around her, from her character’s most intimate friends to total strangers. None of the characters are named. The main character is merely “the woman” and the other characters defined according to her relationship with hyphen. And isn’t that remarkably spot on about the human condition? In many ways, the people and places we know cease to exist when we aren’t interacting with them.
The lack of character names serves to anonymize them, while making their relationship to the main character somehow more meaningful. That same lack foregrounds the reader’s empathy and encourages us to identify with the character. Furthermore, the writer quotes extensively from philosophers and other thinkers. The novel is grounded with all the weight of historical minds, while sharply contrasting with the nameless characters. We know the details about these dead people, but have to strain to tease apart the complexities of the fictional characters.

For fans of THE FRIEND, there is much familiar in WHAT ARE YOU GOING THROUGH--a dispassionate series of portraits carved of superbly crafted prose. While the first portion of the novel follows the lives of several characters, the final portion narrows its focus to delve with unflinching intensity on a narrower cast. Not quite as enthralling as the author's previous novel, but a masterfully rich read.

Like most books about dying, it leaves you feeling unmoored and adrift in existential thoughts. Nunez had distilled this extremely layered experience of watching a loved one suffer illness and decide to die into a short volume that is as affecting as it is brief. Oh and there's a section from the viewpoint of a cat so...points for that.

If you have read Sigrid Nunez's The Friend before, you may find this book a little bit familiar. There are plenty of literary references and the narrator may be the same female writer/professor from the previous book. Both books also deal with similar issue, from different perspectives. While I enjoyed reading What Are You Going Through, I can't help but feel that it doesn't have the same charms that The Friend does.