Sigrid Nunez Shows off Her Human Side
Sigrid Nunez, the current writer in residence at Baruch College, brought to life an excerpt from her novel The Last of Her Kind at a book reading event. The question and answer session was memorable in the eyes of the audience members, who were taken aback by both Nunez’s reserve when answering questions about her craft and openness when describing anecdotes of her days as a reckless teenager.
The excerpt Nunez read brought the audience into the world of two roommates at Barnard College during the late 60s, when she was a student there. Although the piece she read dealt with the character’s general characteristics and mannerisms, the audience members could get a feel for them and relate to their collegiate turmoil in finding a solid sense of identity in a world completely different from their pre-college lives. After the vivid reading, Nunez took questions posed by the audience members. She explained that when she writes the novels, she takes something from her life and further explores it. In all of her books, she develops a connection to the characters and feels like they are people she knows. Questions that were aimed at asking Nunez to reveal aspects of her craft and the technical aspect of writing seemed to make Nunez uncomfortable. She would withdraw and find a circuitous way to answer the question without really answering it. When asked about the extent of the autobiographical facts in her first novel A Feather on the Breath of God, Nunez noticeably drew back. She tried to explain that even though some parts of the novel can be interpreted as being autobiographical, “I use my imagination to write about characters so they are believable and convincing.” She further debunked the notion that Feather can be considered a memoir because “if it were nonfiction, the whole voice and style would have been different.” This can only lead those in the audience to assume that this was either a touchy subject because Nunez had indeed put much of her personal life into the story or, it was more made up and idealistic than a nonfiction would have been. Either way, answering that question truthfully might have been too exposing for Nunez as a novelist.
With other questions, Nunez surprised herself and the listeners with a type of candor most were not expecting in light of her roundabout answers to some of the other seemingly straightforward questions. When asked about the writing process itself, she admitted that unlike many of her contemporaries, she does not play into the idea that a novel must be planned out in advance. To the delight of many aspiring writers who love to write without a rigid plan in mind, she also explained how she just allows the ideas to flow and takes it “piece by piece, twenty pages at a time.”
In reference to a scene in “A Feather on the Breath of God,” someone asked Nunez is she actually rode in car with her friends when high on acid, driving through California. A little taken aback but without backing down, Nunez proclaimed “Yes, I’ve done acid. I’ve done acid and many drugs, more than once.” Such bluntness only made Nunez seem more down to Earth.
Despite not being as open as other guest speakers, like Samuel Freedman or Angela Brown, Sigrid Nunez is captivating as a person and as a writer. A Feather on the Breath of God is a very poignant novel that tells a unique story in a way that reads more like a journal than the typical narrative. The short sentence structure, often featuring the use of single syllable words, seems to add to the simplicity of the story itself. There are no frills when it comes to the form because the story and the emotion, or lack thereof, is at the center of the novel. The reader can interpret all the terse descriptions to indicate an early upbringing void of emotion and tenderness. Her personality really shines through in the novel and this left me feeling satisfied.
Photo credit: Maya Kashyap