In this poignant, intimate memoir, Nunez, a novelist who lived with Susan Sontag's son for several years in the 1970s, speaks of her gratitude for having had, as an early model, "someone who held such an exalted, unironic view of the writer's vocation." Published more than six years after Sontag's death, "Sempre Susan" is a startlingly truthful portrait of this outsized personality, who made being an intellectual a glamorous occupation.
Von der Autorin des Bestsellers »Der Freund« erscheinen jetzt die autobiographischen Erinnerungen an ihre Zeit mit Susan Sontag»Sigrid Nunez liefert das bis heute lebendigste und schillerndste Porträt von Susan Sontag.« Vogue
Frühling 1976 in New York City: Sigrid Nunez, gerade mal 25 Jahre alt, träumt davon, Schriftstellerin zu werden, als Bob Silvers von der "New York Review of Books" ihr einen Job vermittelt: Sie soll einer bekannten Autorin, die ein paar Straßenecken weiter auf der Upper Westside wohnt, bei der Korrespondenz helfen. Wenig später sitzt Nunez am Küchentisch von Susan Sontag und tippt auf deren Schreibmaschine, was Susan ihr diktiert. Sie lernt die glamouröse Denkerin aus nächster Nähe kennen, verliebt sich in deren Sohn David und zieht schließlich bei den beiden ein. Ein Erinnerungsbuch, in dem Sigrid Nunez über die vielleicht prägendste Begegnung ihres Lebens schreibt und ein privates, nuanciertes Porträt von Susan Sontag entsteht.
Von der Autorin des Bestsellers »Der Freund« erscheinen jetzt die autobiographischen Erinnerungen an ihre Zeit mit Susan Sontag»Sigrid Nunez liefert das bis heute lebendigste und schillerndste Porträt von Susan Sontag.« Vogue
Frühling 1976 in New York City: Sigrid Nunez, gerade mal 25 Jahre alt, träumt davon, Schriftstellerin zu werden, als Bob Silvers von der "New York Review of Books" ihr einen Job vermittelt: Sie soll einer bekannten Autorin, die ein paar Straßenecken weiter auf der Upper Westside wohnt, bei der Korrespondenz helfen. Wenig später sitzt Nunez am Küchentisch von Susan Sontag und tippt auf deren Schreibmaschine, was Susan ihr diktiert. Sie lernt die glamouröse Denkerin aus nächster Nähe kennen, verliebt sich in deren Sohn David und zieht schließlich bei den beiden ein. Ein Erinnerungsbuch, in dem Sigrid Nunez über die vielleicht prägendste Begegnung ihres Lebens schreibt und ein privates, nuanciertes Porträt von Susan Sontag entsteht.
"A fresh and touching book [Nunez s] genuine curiosity about her own experience her memories of love lost, youth and youth lost is the quality that gives this book an elegant, almost compulsive readability." The New York Review of Books
"A loving memoir, full of arresting details and an occasionally spirited defense of her mentor Sontag [once] remarked that all her work says be serious, be passionate, wake up. Clearly someone was listening." The Los Angeles Times
"Susan Sontag roars to life As magnetic and complicated as Sontag herself, Nunez s homage is both critical and compassionate [an] elegantly crafted chronicle of a young writer s artistic education." Vanity Fair
"Nunez, an uncompromising talent in her own right, offers the most vibrant and multifaceted portrait of Sontag to date." Vogue
"Nunez has constructed a eulogy that mythologizes and humanizes one of the most intimidating figures of contemporary culture." The Boston Globe
"Sempre Susan doesn t just evoke Susan Sontag, the person, with hard-won sympathy, insight, and cool; it contains (in a very tiny space) material for an entire novel of idealism and disillusionment .this memoir captures the spirit of her times." The Paris Review, Staff Picks
"Sontag once wrote about feeling estranged from the Susan Sontag who stood on the spine of the books she had written. In Nunez s Sempre Susan, the gap between the writer and the person who wrote the books is made all the more vividly real a reminder of the extraordinary transformative work that goes into writing in the first place." Slate
"Nunez, now a fine novelist, has written a clear-eyed tribute With an eye for the telling detail, this intimate and occasionally raw portrait makes it plain that despite all Sontag s public renown, much of her was entirely mysterious." The Economist
"A wonderful novelist remembers Susan Sontag as a writer, mentor, woman, friend and enthusiastic lover of a vanished New York." Katha Pollitt, The Nation s Summer Reading List
"Nunez s book is an elegy for a great woman and the company she kept, the vanished salon where she was the center." The New York Observer
"A boldly intimate, stingingly frank, and genuinely fascinating memoir." Booklist
"Graceful, respectful and achingly honest." Kirkus
"Sigrid Nunez s intimate portrayal of Susan Sontag will fascinate both ardent Sontag fans and those who have never read her work. This memoir is at once a window into the writing life in general, an examination of the complexities of one artist in particular, and a tribute to the lost intellectual New York City of the 1970s. Remarkably, it s as honest as it is affectionate and as sad as it is charming." Curtis Sittenfeld
"Sempre Susan is written with quiet authority, flashes of poetry, and a steady accumulation of startling, precise details, some apocryphal (Sontag didn t know what a dragonfly was? drank blood as a child?), until by the end Sontag the Myth comes to life. What is amazing about this wonderful book is that by the end we know as much about Nunez as we do about Sontag, by the very focus of her attention, by her perception of the myth, by her compassionate interpretation." Nick Flynn
"This detailed, nuanced account of the more private side of a complex, contradictory public figure is told with even-handed good humor and more than a little compassion. Utterly absorbing." Lydia Davis
"The best thing written about Sontag." Edmund White
"A loving memoir, full of arresting details and an occasionally spirited defense of her mentor Sontag [once] remarked that all her work says be serious, be passionate, wake up. Clearly someone was listening." The Los Angeles Times
"Susan Sontag roars to life As magnetic and complicated as Sontag herself, Nunez s homage is both critical and compassionate [an] elegantly crafted chronicle of a young writer s artistic education." Vanity Fair
"Nunez, an uncompromising talent in her own right, offers the most vibrant and multifaceted portrait of Sontag to date." Vogue
"Nunez has constructed a eulogy that mythologizes and humanizes one of the most intimidating figures of contemporary culture." The Boston Globe
"Sempre Susan doesn t just evoke Susan Sontag, the person, with hard-won sympathy, insight, and cool; it contains (in a very tiny space) material for an entire novel of idealism and disillusionment .this memoir captures the spirit of her times." The Paris Review, Staff Picks
"Sontag once wrote about feeling estranged from the Susan Sontag who stood on the spine of the books she had written. In Nunez s Sempre Susan, the gap between the writer and the person who wrote the books is made all the more vividly real a reminder of the extraordinary transformative work that goes into writing in the first place." Slate
"Nunez, now a fine novelist, has written a clear-eyed tribute With an eye for the telling detail, this intimate and occasionally raw portrait makes it plain that despite all Sontag s public renown, much of her was entirely mysterious." The Economist
"A wonderful novelist remembers Susan Sontag as a writer, mentor, woman, friend and enthusiastic lover of a vanished New York." Katha Pollitt, The Nation s Summer Reading List
"Nunez s book is an elegy for a great woman and the company she kept, the vanished salon where she was the center." The New York Observer
"A boldly intimate, stingingly frank, and genuinely fascinating memoir." Booklist
"Graceful, respectful and achingly honest." Kirkus
"Sigrid Nunez s intimate portrayal of Susan Sontag will fascinate both ardent Sontag fans and those who have never read her work. This memoir is at once a window into the writing life in general, an examination of the complexities of one artist in particular, and a tribute to the lost intellectual New York City of the 1970s. Remarkably, it s as honest as it is affectionate and as sad as it is charming." Curtis Sittenfeld
"Sempre Susan is written with quiet authority, flashes of poetry, and a steady accumulation of startling, precise details, some apocryphal (Sontag didn t know what a dragonfly was? drank blood as a child?), until by the end Sontag the Myth comes to life. What is amazing about this wonderful book is that by the end we know as much about Nunez as we do about Sontag, by the very focus of her attention, by her perception of the myth, by her compassionate interpretation." Nick Flynn
"This detailed, nuanced account of the more private side of a complex, contradictory public figure is told with even-handed good humor and more than a little compassion. Utterly absorbing." Lydia Davis
"The best thing written about Sontag." Edmund White
Perlentaucher-Notiz zur NZZ-Rezension
Rezensentin Andrea Köhler hat Susan Sontag noch selbst kennengelernt in New York und eine Ahnung davon erhalten, wie schwierig sie als Mensch sein konnte. Das heben natürlich auch die beiden Bücher hervor, die sich der großen Intellektuellen und Schriftstellerin auf unterschiedliche Art annähern und die Köhler nur bedingt empfehlen kann. Denn so genau wie Sigrid Nunez in ihren Erinnerungen von Sontags persönlichen Fehlern und Schwächen berichtet, will die Rezensentin es gar nicht wissen. Nunez war als Zwanzigzährige mit Sontags Sohn David Rieff liiert und schildert Sontag vor allem als dominante und besitzergreifende Mutter. Allerdings spürt Köhler bei Nunez auch Verbundenheit und Bewunderung für Sontag, weswegen ihr sie nicht den Vorwurf des Revanchismus machen möchte.
© Perlentaucher Medien GmbH
© Perlentaucher Medien GmbH