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- [00:00]
Capella University
This message comes from Capella University. With Capella's flexpath learning format, you can set your own deadlines and learn on your schedule. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at capella. Edu.
- [00:16]
David Biancooli
This is FRESH air. I'm David Biancooley. The new film the Friend, starring Naomi Watts and Bill Murray is based on the novel of the same name by Sigrid Nunez. Her book won a 2018 National Book Award for Fiction. It begins with the narrator, a woman at the memorial of a dear friend who killed himself. He was more than a friend years before. He was her writing professor and mentor when she was his student. They slept together once at his suggestion. She wasn't the only student he seduced, but her friendship with him outlasted his three marriages and many affairs. After his death, she reluctantly inherits his dog, 180 pound Great Dane who, like her, is grieving. Here's a clip from the film. Bill Murray as Walter and Naomi Watts as Iris are the two old friends. He's trying to persuade her to get his daughter to help put together a book of his work.
- [01:15]
Sigrid Nunez
She's lovely. She's bright. I like to work by myself.
- [01:18]
Terry Gross
She's very bright.
- [01:19]
Sigrid Nunez
I just said that.
- [01:20]
Terry Gross
You might appreciate another perspective, you know, someone to bounce things out.
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Sigrid Nunez
No, that's not the point.
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Terry Gross
Young, energetic and my daughter.
- [01:29]
Sigrid Nunez
Right, but she hardly knows you. She doesn't know your work.
- [01:31]
Terry Gross
And that's exactly what I'm trying to fix.
- [01:34]
Sigrid Nunez
So I'm the fixer.
- [01:36]
Terry Gross
Everyone knows that you fix things.
- [01:39]
David Biancooli
The novel the Friend is filled with reflections about the line between appropriate and inappropriate relations between students and teachers, what it's like to mourn a friend who left no note to explain his suicide, the bond that can develop between a dog and a person and how being a writer has changed in the era of social media. We're going to Listen to Terry's 2019 interview with Sigrid Nunez. Please note there is a discussion of suicide at the beginning of this interview. If you or someone you know has thoughts of suicide and needs help, call or text the Suicide Lifeline at 988. That's nine, eight.
- [02:20]
Sigrid Nunez
Sigrid Nunes, welcome to FRESH AIR. I want to start with a reading from your novel. And this is from very early on when the main character has recently learned that her friend has committed suicide and is reflecting on, like, why.
- [02:38]
Terry Gross
Because of the timing. So near the start of the year, it was possible to think that it had been a resolution. One of those times when you talked about it. You said that what would stop you was your students. Naturally, you were concerned about the effect such an example might have on them. Nevertheless, we thought nothing of it when you quit teaching last year, even though we knew that you liked teaching and that you needed the money. Another time you said that for a person who had reached a certain age, it could be a rational decision, a perfectly sound choice, a solution even, unlike when a young person commits suicide, which could never be anything but a mistake. Once you cracked us up with the line, I think I'd prefer a novella of a life. Stevie Smith, calling death the only God who must come when he's called tickled you pink, as did the various ways people have said that were it not for suicide, they could not go on walking with Samuel Beckett. One fine spring morning, a friend of his asked, doesn't a day like this make you glad to be alive? I wouldn't go as far as that. Beckett said that there was to be a memorial. Took us by surprise. We who had heard you say that you would never want any such thing. The very idea was repugnant to you. Did Wife three simply choose to ignore this? Was it because you'd failed to put it in writing? Like most suicides, you did not leave a note.
- [04:23]
Sigrid Nunez
That was Sigrid Nunes reading from her novel the Friend. So this novel has a lot to do with suicide and trying to understand why somebody did it. Have you lost someone to suicide?
- [04:38]
Terry Gross
Yes, I have. I have. And when? Before I started writing this book, one of the main reasons why I wanted to write about suicide was because I realized that I knew quite a few people who had the idea of suicide on their minds. I mean, they might not have been actually planning it, but it had come to. They'd come to believe that this was how their story would end. It was a choice that was very much on their minds all the time, not just at moments of despair. And I had finished the novel, though it hadn't been published yet. When one of those people did suicide.
- [05:23]
Sigrid Nunez
How did that person take their life?
- [05:26]
Terry Gross
He jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge.
- [05:31]
Sigrid Nunez
And what did it make you think about? Thinking of the way that person chose to end it.
- [05:38]
Terry Gross
I actually think that when people make that decision, it's such a mystery. I do know that people who have jumped and have survived, no small number of them have said afterwards that as soon as their hands let go or as soon as they were in the air, they regretted it. And then afterwards, when they were saved, they were happy to have been saved. So I have to have that in my mind that that might have happened to him too.
- [06:20]
Sigrid Nunez
It must hurt for you to think about that, certainly.
- [06:25]
Terry Gross
And I, you know, he did not. I was not in touch with him right before he killed himself and there was no note. So I really don't know exactly what his thoughts were. Now. He was somebody who had been suicidal during his life and who suffered from depression and had been very unhappy. But still, even when a suicide like that happens and it can come as an extraordinary shock while at the same time not really being a surprise, I was not surprised. In fact, when I came home from teaching and I saw an email from a mutual friend that said, call me when you get this message. I knew instantly.
- [07:16]
Sigrid Nunez
When a friend of yours talks about the temptation of suicide, what do you say? Do you say, you know, do you try to talk them out of it? Do you try to just listen?
- [07:28]
Terry Gross
Oh, I try to just listen. My friend who jumped from the bridge, suicide was something he talked about all the time and the different ways that he might do it. Also, when you know that somebody is feeling this way, you know, you make all those suggestions about places to get in touch with people who might be able to help to go into therapy, if you aren't already. But I think it's very, very hard for people to deal with other people's suicidal feelings because it's so extreme. Self homicide, self murder, it's so against the normal course of things. And since I wrote this book, I receive so many emails all the time from people who have lost people in some cases very recently to suicide. And I do have to think of ways to answer those emails. And I do, I answer every one of them.
- [08:39]
Sigrid Nunez
Another issue that your novel deals with is relationships between professors and students, specifically between male professors and female students and the attraction that can form between them. The main character is a woman and the character who kills himself, her very dear friend had been her college professor years ago. And they even had a brief affair after he told her they should try sleeping together because he said we should find that out about each other. And she says, I don't think it ever occurred to either of us that I might refuse. And then he tells her that, well, it's not really going to work out. And she's kind of devastated. But they remain good friends. He marries three times. They remain good friends throughout all those marriages. She's never quite sure what the wives feel about their relationship. And he tells her, to be a teacher is to be a seducer. And there are times when he must also be a heartbreaker. Have you heard men say that about teaching, that to be a teacher is. Is to be a seducer.
- [09:51]
Terry Gross
I have. I have. And I believe in this case, he is paraphrasing something that was said by George Steiner. Yes. If not in those words, or let's just put it this way, if not in words, in some cases, that message is there. I have certainly heard that.
- [10:17]
Sigrid Nunez
It strikes me as such a male thing. Like, I don't think women teachers, women professors see themselves that way, unless you're talking about seducing people into learning. But I don't think women teachers see themselves as wanting to flirt and maybe go to bed with their students. I'm not saying all men do either, but I think it's, over the years, been more common thing for men than for women.
- [10:46]
Terry Gross
Well, that might be true, but I do think that women, female mentors and women in positions of power do indeed have that same feeling. They might not carry it all the way through, but wanting to seduce their mentees or their students. But I think you can understand that. What? That, you know, that doesn't seem so strange to me that a young person would say that. And then I think as a mentor, Susan Sontag certainly was extremely seductive and was fully aware of how magnetic and charismatic and seductive she was to men and women in that role. It was a huge part of her personality.
- [11:36]
Sigrid Nunez
Seductive in the literal sense of like, I'm going to try to convince you to sleep with me, or just seductive at a distance. Yeah, both.
- [11:49]
Terry Gross
Both. It would depend on the person. But Sontag used to talk about that, how when she had any kind of affection or strong feeling for anyone, she always also wanted to sleep with that person. That was part of it. Now, she didn't always, of course, but it was always there. There was always some attraction like that or some desire there. But as I say, just to remember her, I can't separate that seductive quality of hers out from the rest.
- [12:25]
Sigrid Nunez
I was gonna say, just to put that in context, when you were in your 20s, I think you were a couple with David Reiff, Susan Sontag's son. She, at the time, was diagnosed with cancer. You were both living with Susan Sontag. She became a friend and mentor to you, and you got to see her at her best and her worst.
- [12:45]
Terry Gross
Yes.
- [12:47]
Sigrid Nunez
Okay. Have you ever felt like a seducer as a teacher yourself, because you've taught in different settings? I mean, you've taught literature and writing in colleges. You've taught English as a second language, so. And you've taught over the years, so you've seen You've seen issues about, you know, power in the classroom change over the years.
- [13:19]
Terry Gross
I've never. No, I've never had that. I've never had any kind of issue come up even, you know, remotely connected to that. You know, it's been helpful to me that I didn't start teaching until I was in my 40s. And I can easily imagine. Oh, God, can I imagine how different it might have been if I had been teaching, as many of my students do and my fellow writers in their twenties? It might have been a whole other story.
- [13:52]
Sigrid Nunez
What do you think would have been different?
- [13:55]
Terry Gross
Well, I think I might have been more susceptible, and I think that anybody.
- [14:03]
Sigrid Nunez
Could be, as you said, you've seen the rules of conduct in the classroom change. It's against the guidelines in most places now to have a relationship with a student. You know, sexual relationship with a student. And you've also said, you know, in the past, marriages that have worked out really well between a professor and the student. And the one I think of immediately is poet Donald hall and poet Jane Kenyon, and she was first his student, and then they, you know, they had a long marriage.
- [14:39]
Terry Gross
Right. And I can't think of any names right now, any couples, but there are many, many of them.
- [14:46]
Sigrid Nunez
But probably the more common thing is closer to inappropriate. Do you know what I mean? Like, there have been some great marriages and relationships that have come out of that, and some also, like, real damage and inappropriate things. How have you seen the rules change? Like, your character has to attend sexual misconduct classes and learn what the new rules were. So how have you seen the new rules change and how have you reacted to it as a woman?
- [15:14]
Terry Gross
Oh, we all take those courses now in universities and colleges, as soon as you start teaching, there's an online course about sexual misconduct, trying to make everything as clear as possible. And it's completely understood now that it is inappropriate. It's not allowed. You could lose your job. You know, this is fairly recent, and I think it's just something that had to be done. You know, even though there were these marriages, that doesn't mean that it wasn't inappropriate for the professor to have the affair with the student before he married her. I mean, it was still an inappropriate thing. It was still a dangerous thing to do. It was still something that was far more likely to hurt young women in some way than anything else. And I think that the most pernicious thing about when a mentor or professor has an affair with a student or treats a student in some sexual way is that there's also the student's work. And what happens is, because this is something that has happened to me, happened to me as a student. You don't know what it affects the value of your work. I mean, you think, well, did those guys really think that my work was so great? Because the one female professor, she actually didn't think it was as great as they did. So is it that they really think that, or are they just trying to sleep with me? And that is something that a lot of women know about. It's something that a lot of them go through. It's a kind of gaslighting. You end up not knowing, is it the work or is it me? The girl, the young, you know, the young woman. For that to be eliminated is, you know, is definitely progress.
- [17:17]
Sigrid Nunez
What year are we talking about? About when you were in college?
- [17:20]
Terry Gross
Well, this would have been. I graduated from Barnard in 72 and from Columbia in 75, the MFA program. But I'm not just talking about school. I'm not just talking about school. I'm talking about men in positions of power after that as well. I'm talking about a long period of my life.
- [17:44]
Sigrid Nunez
And then there's the question, like, if you're not supposed to talk about sexually related subjects in class, when you're teaching a writing workshop, which is what you do, and you're encouraging people to write openly, and sex is a part of life, and sexual thinking is a huge part of young people's lives, do you make that subject off topic? Do you make that subject taboo for writing in class? How do you talk about it if it's not taboo for writing in class? Have you thought about that a lot?
- [18:19]
Terry Gross
I have. I have no idea what other writing instructors do, but in fact, it turns out, in my experience, not to be a problem because the students do not write about sex. They are either too shy or afraid, too afraid to offend somebody. Have heard stories about other workshops where very bad things have happened. People have gotten upset. But mostly I find, and I find it rather odd that it's very, very unusual for a student to write about sex in a writing work, either undergrad or graduate.
- [18:59]
Sigrid Nunez
Is that a relief to you as the teacher?
- [19:02]
Terry Gross
No. No, it's not. Because I feel like it's just one of many things that they are, you know, parts of human experience that they're just. They just won't go there. And, you know, a writer has to go there. You know, very often what they do, and then we talk about this in class is they go up to a point and then they panic or get shy or whatever, and then they just make a leap. And then, you know, I say, but you didn't do it. You lost your nerve. You see, the most important thing when you're writing is that you don't flinch. You know, the reader will not accept this. The reader will see right away that you didn't have what it takes. You didn't have the guts to actually write that scene that you led us right up to. And then you skip right over it. But, I mean, it's very understandable because maybe if they were, you know, writing it for publication, they hope, but they don't have to share it in a classroom with an instructor and everybody talking about it, you know, that's difficult for them.
- [20:08]
David Biancooli
Sigrid Nunez speaking with Terry Gross in 2019. Her novel the Friend won the 2018 National Book Award for Fiction. It's been adapted into a new film of the same name and opens today in New York city and nationwide April 4th. Also, Justin Chang reviews the new French thriller Misericordia. I'm David Biancooli and this is FRESH air.
- [20:32]
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- [21:20]
Capella University
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- [21:55]
David Biancooli
2019 interview with author Sigrid Nunez. Her novel the friend won the 2018 National Book Award for Fiction and has been adapted into a new film. One of the co stars of the film is a very Large dog, a Great Dane named Bing. Here's a clip in which Naomi Watts, playing a writer named Iris, learns that her best friend wanted her to take ownership of his dog after his death.
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Terry Gross
Iris, I need to talk with you.
- [22:23]
Thuma
It's about the dog. I wanted to ask if you could take him.
- [22:28]
Sigrid Nunez
No, I, I, I can't.
- [22:30]
Thuma
No. This is what Walter wanted after he died.
- [22:35]
Sigrid Nunez
Why would he say that you were his best friend? The story in the Friend, the narrator is a woman whose mentor from college, who was close to her age, became a dear friend and he has just committed suicide. She's left grieving and wondering why. And she also inherits his dog. And it's not just like any dog, it's 180 pound Great Dane. And she lives in a small rent controlled apartment in New York. And it's illegal, it's against the regulations to have a dog in that apartment. So she kind of violates the regulations, takes the dog kind of reluctantly, and they become very close and they're both grieving. The dog is grieving too. But as you've said, you can't describe death to a dog. You can't explain death to a dog.
- [23:29]
Terry Gross
Yeah, that's something that has struck me well before I started writing this book, how difficult that is really, because, you know, there the dog is at home, as far as the dog knows, everything is fine. And then the person, the dog's person, the most beloved one, vanishes into thin air. Just doesn't, you know, doesn't, isn't there anymore. There is no way to explain to the dog what happened. And it just seems to me that that must be a remarkable emotional tumult for the dog.
- [24:06]
Sigrid Nunez
She walks the street with the dog. You know, she takes the dog on walks. Of course you have to, because the dog is so, so big. She feels like she's a spectacle when she's on the street with the dog. And everybody's like stopping and wanting to do a selfie or asking how much he eats or how much he defecates. And she's kind of, you know, I think she feels like partly her privacy is being invaded, but partly just like amused by the whole thing. But it connects to something larger that her friend who took his life used to say, which is that, you know, he used to like, love to walk and felt like he did best writing while he was walking and just kind of losing himself in his thoughts and in his surroundings. But he always thought that that would be harder for a woman to do because a woman always has to be on guard. Is this guy following me? Is this guy going to grope me? Is this guy going to attack me? What about that catcall? And so I'm wondering if you thought about that from both directions about, you know, the difficulties of sometimes losing yourself as a woman who has to be on guard when walking the streets and the difference when you have this like huge dog who everybody wants to stop and admire when you're walking.
- [25:24]
Terry Gross
Well, it's true that I was writing about flanery and the flaneur who was an urban walker.
- [25:33]
Sigrid Nunez
That's a French word.
- [25:34]
Terry Gross
Yes. And the mentors idea that, you know, can there really be such a thing as a flaneuse? Can a woman be a flaneur? Because real flanery requires that you are able to lose yourself in an urban setting and just walk and dream and discover. And that that is very difficult for a woman. Now, if we were talking about walking in the country, that would be different. But that's not what a flaneur does. It did strike me, I guess, just as an idea when I was writing that, that of course it is true what he says, that a woman is raised to be always on guard. Is there someone behind me? And not to mention remarks that are made or stares that are given, that certainly does make it much different for a woman than for a man. And with my narrator walking with the dog, she does feel embarrassed. She's a very private person and she doesn't want to be interrupted constantly when she's taking the dog for a walk. And then there's a certain amount of irritation with the same things always being said, like, why don't you ride him? And as you say, how much does he eat? And also people putting in their two cents, such as, it's a sin, a crime, as one woman says, I think it's a crime to keep a dog that large in the city, or that dog shouldn't be in the city, which is something that people do. Say, if you walk a big dog.
- [27:12]
Sigrid Nunez
And you've walked big dogs, you've had big dogs, right?
- [27:15]
Terry Gross
I've had. Well, my family had an enormous Great Dane. And you know, I was already out of the house by then. But I did walk him. And you know, children would follow and people would say things. But I also had a dog that was a half Great Dane, half German shepherd and looked like a somewhat small, a Great Dane that I walked. And yes, yes, people do make a lot of comments.
- [27:45]
Sigrid Nunez
I'm guilty of being one of the people who say, how much does the dog eat? I could probably ride the dog. Because I literally could probably ride the dog. I mean, I'm so short, I could really probably do it. I know people who won't get a pet after their beloved pet has died because they feel like they can't go through that grieving process again. And it reminds me of people who won't remarry because they can't bear the thought of losing a second spouse.
- [28:15]
Terry Gross
Yes, I get a lot of emails from those people, too. A lot. You know, they have lost a pet, and it's been overwhelming to them. And very many of them say, I don't know if I could get another one or if I should get another one. Yeah, I mean, people become so emotionally attached to the animals in their lives. We probably underestimate how powerful that pain is when people lose an animal that they love.
- [28:45]
Sigrid Nunez
Do you have pets now?
- [28:48]
Terry Gross
No, I don't. I had two cats, and they grew to be quite old and they both died. And it was when the second one died that, again, I was one of those people who was so overwhelmed, and I. I have not been able to bring myself to get another cat since then. And that was years ago.
- [29:11]
Sigrid Nunez
Because of the grief.
- [29:13]
Terry Gross
Yes, largely. Largely because of that. Just not wanting to go through all that again. But there was something about the way that cat died and the loss of it. In fact, I do write about that in the novel that I just was not able to get over that.
- [29:35]
Sigrid Nunez
How did the cat die?
- [29:37]
Terry Gross
Well, she was elderly and she became very ill. And then I took her to the vet who agreed that she should be put down because she was so. Because she would have to have surgery. And at her age, that was probably not such a good idea. And then the vet said, I have to give her two shots, one to calm her down, and something went wrong. And then she picked up the cat and ran off with it. She had said to me, do you want to be with her when she dies? I said, of course. And then something went wrong. It had to do with the vein being too dehydrated when she made the first injection. And she then picked up the cat and ran off with it. And then I waited, and then she came back and put the cat on the table, and the cat was dead. And I remembered her saying, do you want to be with her? Well, then I wasn't with her. And, yeah, it was very, very painful. And there was a certain point before the cat died where, you know, she was so ill. And I brought her in to the vet and she there, and I felt that, you know, the way I write it. I said, I'm not saying this is what she said, but this is what I heard. She put her paw on my arm and I imagined her saying, wait, you're making a mistake. I didn't say I wanted you to kill me. I wanted you to make me feel better.
- [31:17]
Sigrid Nunez
Yeah. You never really know, do you? With a cat or a dog is thinking about whether it's time to end their life.
- [31:28]
Terry Gross
Exactly. And it was just a very overwhelming experience.
- [31:31]
Sigrid Nunez
Yeah.
- [31:32]
David Biancooli
Sigrid Nunez speaking to Terry Gross in 2019. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
- [31:40]
Sigrid Nunez
I spoke with you in 1996.
- [31:43]
Terry Gross
Yes.
- [31:44]
Sigrid Nunez
And one of the things you said is I've never been married and I'm not going to marry. And I said, how can you be so certain? And you said, well, there isn't anything I could have from a marriage that I don't really have. Do you still feel that way?
- [32:02]
Terry Gross
Well, I never did marry, just as I said, and that isn't something that I regret it. I think at the time what I was referring to also was that I was with someone. I was in a relationship. We were living together. I didn't really see why we had to get married and we didn't. Now I am not in a relationship. I'm not living with anyone. But I, you know, I guess I understood it then. It was just marriage was just not going to be for me because I don't I've just I do not I have not shared that desire and need that so many people seem to have. I just, you know, when I was very young, when I was a teenager, I think I had, you know, fantasies of wedding and romance and marriage and children, but I don't have children. And I knew quite a long time ago that I wasn't going to have children. So again, I mean, that makes a difference, too. So I felt that I could be in relationships, I could have full, meaningful relationships without getting married, and I did.
- [33:28]
Sigrid Nunez
I think it was in your first book that you wrote, Time and time again I discover that I have not completely let go of the notion that salvation will come in the form of a man.
- [33:38]
Terry Gross
That's true, too.
- [33:39]
Sigrid Nunez
Do you still feel that way or did you give that up?
- [33:41]
Terry Gross
I think I'm losing.
- [33:42]
Sigrid Nunez
Did you give up that feeling? Yeah.
- [33:46]
Terry Gross
Oh, I've given that up. I've given that up, Terri. I don't feel that way anymore.
- [33:50]
Sigrid Nunez
Okay. Have you thought about the difference of being single in the latter part of your 60s, where you are now, compared to being single when you're younger?
- [34:03]
Terry Gross
Oh, of course, it's much easier when you're older, I think. Why do you think it's easier to be single?
- [34:11]
Sigrid Nunez
Mm.
- [34:13]
Terry Gross
I think it's easier because. Well, I guess it depends on what we mean. I think it's very hard. It's very hard to be single when you're young because there's so many opportunities to not be single. You know, I think there. It's both romantic relationships and friendships. There's, you know, when you're younger, you get into these relationships fairly easily, and the people that you meet who are, you know, your peers, they want those relationships and friendships, too. And it's quite different when you're older. I mean, I know people actually, you know, feel melancholy about this, that it's harder to. You meet people when you're older and you feel like you have a lot in common and you really like that person and that person seems to like you, but you just don't form the kind of friendship with that person that you did with people when you were younger. And so in that sense, it's easier because, you know, you accept a certain amount of being alone and not seeking out people to date. Of course, everyone's different, but for me, I just feel like I, you know, I'm not distracted by the idea of dating or meeting someone or finding someone the way, you know, the way I was when I was younger, the way I was for most of my life.
- [35:48]
Sigrid Nunez
Okay. Then the thought comes up, what about when you get older, if you're single then and your health fails or something?
- [35:57]
Terry Gross
Yeah. You mean, who's going to take you to the vet for the two injections.
- [36:04]
Sigrid Nunez
Or at least for the care? Yeah.
- [36:06]
Terry Gross
Right. Well, it's something that, you know, it's something that people just have to face. It's certainly something that, you know, I think about and worry about, but, you know, this is what, you know, this is the way my life is. I will just have to, you know, deal with that when I have to.
- [36:28]
Sigrid Nunez
Did people used to warn you if you don't have children, you'll regret it when you're older?
- [36:34]
Terry Gross
Yes. And I think that that's very reasonable. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, missing having had children is enormous. Is enormous. You know, I did what I had to do, or, you know, my life turned out as it has. But it's never. I've never not been aware that in not having been a mother, in not having had a child, I have missed one life's greatest, most interesting, most meaningful experiences. I did. I did. But, you know, you don't do everything. You can't have everything.
- [37:15]
Sigrid Nunez
So is that a trade off you feel like you willingly made or do you have any regrets about the choice that you made?
- [37:21]
Terry Gross
I don't. It's exactly that I don't. No matter. In spite of the fact that I know exactly, you know, what a huge thing I missed, I also don't regret it because it was, you know, other women are different. Other people are different. I knew myself well enough to know that I was not going to be able to have the life that I wanted as a writer and be the kind of mother I would hope to be. That's just me. It wasn't going to work out. I was not going to be able to work that out. And I most certainly, unlike any number of women I know, I most certainly was not going to be able to be a good single mother that I know I would have not been good at. And, you know, I was not ever in a position where I felt real confidence with someone I was with that we could do this and he would be there and I would be there and he would make a terrific father. That just didn't happen.
- [38:34]
Sigrid Nunez
I want to end with the quote that opens your book. It's a quote from Nicholson Baker, and the quote is the question any novel is really trying to answer is, is life worth living? No. That's a great quote to open a novel that has a lot to do with suicide. But does that also sum up your idea of what writers really are trying to write about?
- [39:02]
Terry Gross
Yes. I was so struck by that quote, and I found that quote. That's from his Paris Review interview. The book was finished when I found that. And I, you know, by chance I just happened to read the interview and I thought it was so perfect, so perfectly expressed and a bit shocking when you think about it, but I think it's absolutely true. And I'm so grateful to him for having said that.
- [39:38]
Sigrid Nunez
Sigurd Nunes, thank you so much for talking with us.
- [39:41]
Terry Gross
Thank you for having me, Terry.
- [39:43]
David Biancooli
Sigrid Nunez speaking with Terry Gross in 2019. Nunez's novel the Friend has been adapted into a new film, which opens today in New York city and nationwide April 4th. Coming up, Justin Chang reviews the new French thriller Misericordia. This is FRESH air.
- [40:02]
Thuma
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- [40:32]
David Biancooli
Film critic Justin Chang says the new French thriller Misericordia is one of the most enjoyable and surprising films he's seen so far this year. It tells the story of a man whose return to his hometown sets off unsettling shockwaves. Misericordia is now in select theaters. Here is Justin's review.
- [40:52]
Justin Chang
There have been countless movies about people heading back home after some time away and getting a less than friendly reception. Some of these characters are just searching for a little peace and quiet, like the ex boxer played by John Wayne, who returns to his Irish roots in John Ford's classic the Quiet Man. And then there are those like Charlize Theron's misanthropic writer and young adult who blows back into her suburban hometown looking to stir up trouble. One of the pleasures of Alain Giroudi's thriller Misericordia is that you're never quite sure which camp its protagonist falls into. Jeremy, played by Felix Kizil, is a man of about 30 and he's hard to figure out, raffishly handsome but with something cold and inscrutable in his blue eyed gaze. As the movie begins, he's driving to a tiny French village called Saint Martial, nestled in a hilly, densely wooded countryside where residents go on long walks and forage for mushrooms. Jeremy has come back for the funeral of his former employer, a baker who's just died at the age of 62. Jeremy stays with the baker's widow, Martine. She's played by the great French actor Catherine Vrot, and she's open hearted and welcoming, allowing Jeremy to stay on for a bit after the funeral. Rather less hospitable as her son Vincent, who lives nearby with his wife and son but drops by his mom's house often, each time making it clear that Jeremy is overstaying his welcome. The two men have some unfinished business. They used to be friends, and there's a homoerotic undercurrent to their thinly disguised hostility. Whatever might have happened between Jeremy and Vincent is never spelled out, but what makes Misericordia so unsettling and also so darkly funny is its belief that we all walk around carrying our share of latent inconvenient desires. Ghirodi is a leading figure in European queer cinema who's best known for his 2013 gay cruising thriller Stranger by the Lake. That movie was a tightly honed exercise in suspense. For all the sun drenched nudity, it threw off an icy Hitchcockian chill. Since then, though, Giroudi's work has gotten looser, weirder and more brazenly out there, cutting across boundaries in terms of tone, genre and sexuality. His films are full of gay, straight and often cross generational romantic pairings. Indeed, his fascination with May December encounters may be the most taboo thing about his work. In Misericordia, Jeremy has no shortage of potential lust objects. He flits from one erotic possibility to another with a callous lack of investment. He seems to have had a thing for his former boss. He hits on a burly older friend who violently rebuffs him, at least initially. There's also a village priest skulking about, played by a hilarious Jacques Davlee, who seems to know all Jeremy's secrets and harbors a few of his own. Misericordia becomes a small town murder mystery of sorts, complete with dead body, cover up and police investigation. But this isn't one of those puzzles where the truth comes tumbling out in a sudden flurry of flashbacks and revelations. Gy Hodi doesn't have much use for the past. He's interested in how his characters respond in the here and now. Misericordia knows exactly what it's doing and also seems to be making itself up as it goes along. It's meticulous and smart, but it's also spontaneous and alive. The title is the Latin word for mercy, and, as with so much here, it's shrouded in ambiguity. Jeremy receives more than his share of compassion from others, like Martin, who is ludicrously patient with him, and the priest who, in one example of the movie's topsy turvy moral logic, insists on confessing his sins to Jeremy. Giroudi himself grew up in a small town in southern France, and he clearly loves telling stories set against wild and evocative landscapes where anything can happen. Jeremy is clearly drawn to this place, too. For all its impish humor, Misericordia turns out to be an entirely sincere portrait of a small town where bakeries, farms and a whole way of life are on the verge of disappearing. Perhaps making this movie was Guillot's own small act of mercy, a reminder for Jeremy and the rest of us that sometimes maybe you can go home again.
- [46:07]
David Biancooli
Justin Chang is a film critic for the New Yorker. He reviewed the new French thriller Misericordia. On Monday's show. We speak with British actor Stephen Graham, who's starring in two new shows. In the Hulu series A Thousand Blows, he plays a real life bare knuckle boxer fighting in Victorian London. And in Netflix's Adolescence, he plays the father of a 13 year old boy arrested for murdering a copy classmate. I hope you can join us.
- [46:46]
Sigrid Nunez
To.
- [46:46]
David Biancooli
Keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews. Follow us on Instagram at NPRFreshAir. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Sam Brigger is our managing producer. Our senior producer today is Roberta Shorrock. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Hertzfeld and Diana Martinez. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi and Anna Baut. Our digital media program producer is Molly CB Nesper. For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley. I'm David Vi and Cooley.
- [47:32]
Capella University
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