A poignant, intimate memoir of one of America's most esteemed and fascinating cultural figures, and a deeply felt work of homage. Novelist Sigrid Nunez was an aspiring writer when she first met Susan Sontag, already a legendary figure known for her polemical essays, her blindingly bright intelligence, and her edgy personal style. Sontag introduced Nunez to her son, the writer David Rieff, and the two began dating. Soon Nunez had moved into the apartment that Rieff and Sontag shared. Described by Nunez as "a natural mentor," Sontag inevitably infected those around her with her many cultural and intellectual passions. Her influence on Nunez would be profound, and Nunez looks back with gratitude for having had, as an early model, "someone who held such an exalted, unironic view of the writer's vocation." For a young woman who yearned to become a writer, says Nunez, meeting Sontag was one of the luckiest strokes of her life. Published more than six years after Sontag's death, this book is a startlingly truthful portrait of this outsize personality, who made being an intellectual a glamorous occupation.
Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
The iconoclasm of the fearless intellectual Susan Sontag, who died in 2004 of leukemia, began to be revealed with her son David Rieff's memoir, Swimming in a Sea of Death, and continues with novelist Nunez's (Salvation City) thorny remembrance of the woman who was her literary mentor as well as her boyfriend's mother. Sontag was 43, Nunez 25, when the young editorial assistant at the New York Review of Books was hired by the famous writer to help her sort her correspondence at her Riverside Drive apartment in 1976. As a fledgling writer, between college and grad school, Nunez was in awe of Sontag's reputation, her mighty pronouncements, unconventional flair for life, and her critical reading and movie lists; the young writer promptly read her books (knowing Sontag would ask her if she had: "She didn't have a beautiful style," Nunez concludes). Soon Nunez was introduced to Sontag's son, David Rieff, who was a year younger and a student; they began a romance, sanctioned by Sontag, and Nunez moved into the apartment with them, in an increasingly problematic arrangement. What emerges from this conflicted portrait is a vulnerable woman recovering from illness who could not be alone; Sontag was supercilious, insecure, yet vulnerable to beauty and love, fiercely uncompromising, and surely, as Nunez intimates by the end, the finest teacher a young writer could ever have had. (Apr.)
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(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
When Susan Sontag, 43, needed help catching up with correspondence in the wake of a radical mastectomy in 1976, friends suggested Nunez, then a 25-year-old writer wannabe, now an acclaimed novelist. Sontag was avid about sharing her knowledge, enthusiasms, and even her adored son, David Rieff, with Nunez, who ended up moving in. Now, six years after Sontag�s death, Nunez chronicles those heady and unnerving times in a boldly intimate, stingingly frank, and genuinely fascinating memoir. She portrays ever-controversial Sontag as an insatiable reader and moviegoer susceptible to love, a restless yet didactic intellectual who loathed solitude and who had to force herself to write in Dexedrine-fueled marathon sessions, and a clingy single mother. In short, an overwhelming presence for private and restrained Nunez. Sontag averred that getting to know famous writers can be disappointing, but there is nothing diminishing about this up-close-and-personal account of one interlude in Sontag�s remarkable life of blazing literary accomplishment, activism, and valor. And Nunez herself is intriguing. Readers of this thorny remembrance will hope that Nunez tells her own story next time. --Donna Seaman
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More About the Author
Sigrid Nunez was born in New York City, the daughter of a German mother and a Chinese-Panamanian father, whose lives she drew on for part of her first novel, A FEATHER ON THE BREATH OF GOD (1995). She went on to write five more novels, including THE LAST OF HER KIND (2006) and, most recently, SALVATION CITY (2010). She is also the author of SEMPRE SUSAN: A MEMOIR OF SUSAN SONTAG (2011). Her honors include a Whiting Writers' Award, a Rome Prize, a Berlin Prize, and the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Learn more at www.sigridnunez.com.
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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
There is a hell of a lot going on in novelist Sigrid Nunez' slim memoir of her brief but intense association with the writer and public intellectual, Susan Sontag. Nunez has a long-simmering agenda to get through -- and a volatile mix of objectives to achieve. That she somehow pulls this off, and in such short order, is a testament to her talents as a writer.
Consider that Nunez has chosen a risky, non-linear presentation of her material. She depends on the power of "the telling detail" to maintain focus, drive momentum, and recreate a strong character. However scattershot this approach may seem to you at first, the fact is Nunez' cache of details is so huge that the reader's interest is unlikely to flag.
We learn that Sontag always read with a pencil in hand (never a pen), as she was an inveterate underliner and annotator. Around food she did not hide her voracious appetite. She wore men's cologne (Dior Homme). A city lover, she had zero appreciation for nature (she had never heard of a dragonfly). At the cinema she habitually sat in the first row. Among her favorite words: servile, boring, exemplary, serious, grotesque. Her credo: "Security over freedom is a deplorable choice." Nunez notes with approval that Sontag possessed "the habits and the aura of a student." The book is chock-full of anecdotes of New York literary life, of luminaries who settle into Sontag's orbit: Joseph Brodsky, Donald Barthelme, Elizabeth Hardwick, Jean Genet. Sontag's love life gets full exposure. Nunez recalls her lament: "Mean, smart men and silly women seem to be my fate."
Consider, too, how Nunez pulls a switcheroo in the final third of the book. Up to that point Nunez has posed as a wallflower in awe of her high-maintenance mentor. But suddenly Nunez ditches magnanimity. Long-harbored resentments are let loose; it's time to settle some scores. What triggers the shift is Nunez remembering how Sontag "reminded me to a remarkable degree of my German mother -- another touchy, chronic ranter who thought she was surrounded by idiots, who practically lived in a state of indignation." And so the memoir is re-purposed as therapy. Nunez is free to relay how, in her role as a mother, Sontag herself was an idiot: "From the time she knew she was pregnant until the day she went into labor, she never saw a doctor. `I didn't know you were supposed to.'" Nunez proceeds to render diagnostic judgments in quick succession: she tags Sontag as "depressed," "paranoid," "narcissistic" and, in the final analysis, "a masochist and a sadist."
One thing that may disappoint readers is discovering that Nunez' objectives do NOT include her offering any critical analysis of Susan Sontag the intellectual. There are no insights into Sontag's evolving political activism. Although Nunez lived in the Sontag household during the formation of "On Photography," that seminal work is mentioned in only one unenlightening paragraph. If you're the kind of reader who picks up literary biographies hoping to experience vicariously the "Eureka" moments that elevate the creative life, this book will leave you starved. Be aware that "Sempre Susan" offers up more dish than dissertation.
Note 1: If you come to "Sempre Susan" after reading the excerpt that appeared in the New York Times Style Magazine (February 25, 2011), please know that while that article was accompanied by photos of the household trio (Sontag, Nunez, and Sontag's son, David Rieff), the book itself is devoid of photographs other than dust jacket shots of Sontag and Nunez.
Note 2: Readers interested in Sontag's work habits may enjoying reading a recent article by Karla Eoff, who served as the writer's personal assistant a decade after Nunez' relationship with Sontag soured. Eoff's entitles her piece, "The Intellectual's Assistant," and in it she describes Sontag's creative process during the composition of her celebrated novel, "The Volcano Lover." The article appears in the Winter 2011 edition of the online literary magazine, blipmagazine. For a link to it, Google the two names: Sontag, Eoff.
Consider that Nunez has chosen a risky, non-linear presentation of her material. She depends on the power of "the telling detail" to maintain focus, drive momentum, and recreate a strong character. However scattershot this approach may seem to you at first, the fact is Nunez' cache of details is so huge that the reader's interest is unlikely to flag.
We learn that Sontag always read with a pencil in hand (never a pen), as she was an inveterate underliner and annotator. Around food she did not hide her voracious appetite. She wore men's cologne (Dior Homme). A city lover, she had zero appreciation for nature (she had never heard of a dragonfly). At the cinema she habitually sat in the first row. Among her favorite words: servile, boring, exemplary, serious, grotesque. Her credo: "Security over freedom is a deplorable choice." Nunez notes with approval that Sontag possessed "the habits and the aura of a student." The book is chock-full of anecdotes of New York literary life, of luminaries who settle into Sontag's orbit: Joseph Brodsky, Donald Barthelme, Elizabeth Hardwick, Jean Genet. Sontag's love life gets full exposure. Nunez recalls her lament: "Mean, smart men and silly women seem to be my fate."
Consider, too, how Nunez pulls a switcheroo in the final third of the book. Up to that point Nunez has posed as a wallflower in awe of her high-maintenance mentor. But suddenly Nunez ditches magnanimity. Long-harbored resentments are let loose; it's time to settle some scores. What triggers the shift is Nunez remembering how Sontag "reminded me to a remarkable degree of my German mother -- another touchy, chronic ranter who thought she was surrounded by idiots, who practically lived in a state of indignation." And so the memoir is re-purposed as therapy. Nunez is free to relay how, in her role as a mother, Sontag herself was an idiot: "From the time she knew she was pregnant until the day she went into labor, she never saw a doctor. `I didn't know you were supposed to.'" Nunez proceeds to render diagnostic judgments in quick succession: she tags Sontag as "depressed," "paranoid," "narcissistic" and, in the final analysis, "a masochist and a sadist."
One thing that may disappoint readers is discovering that Nunez' objectives do NOT include her offering any critical analysis of Susan Sontag the intellectual. There are no insights into Sontag's evolving political activism. Although Nunez lived in the Sontag household during the formation of "On Photography," that seminal work is mentioned in only one unenlightening paragraph. If you're the kind of reader who picks up literary biographies hoping to experience vicariously the "Eureka" moments that elevate the creative life, this book will leave you starved. Be aware that "Sempre Susan" offers up more dish than dissertation.
Note 1: If you come to "Sempre Susan" after reading the excerpt that appeared in the New York Times Style Magazine (February 25, 2011), please know that while that article was accompanied by photos of the household trio (Sontag, Nunez, and Sontag's son, David Rieff), the book itself is devoid of photographs other than dust jacket shots of Sontag and Nunez.
Note 2: Readers interested in Sontag's work habits may enjoying reading a recent article by Karla Eoff, who served as the writer's personal assistant a decade after Nunez' relationship with Sontag soured. Eoff's entitles her piece, "The Intellectual's Assistant," and in it she describes Sontag's creative process during the composition of her celebrated novel, "The Volcano Lover." The article appears in the Winter 2011 edition of the online literary magazine, blipmagazine. For a link to it, Google the two names: Sontag, Eoff.
7 of 9 people found the following review helpful
By michaelg
Format:Hardcover
In Sigrid Nunez's latest, "Sempre Susan" (a departure from her usual fiction genre), we are treated to a wonderful and intelligent first hand view of life among the New York literary elite of the mid to late 1970's.
As an avid fan of Nunez's fiction, I must say I was initially struck by the ease with which she moves from novel to memoir; from master architect of a tale to keen observer of a time and place. In this depiction of her time living with Sontag and her son David, Nunez's normally compact writing style becomes more complex, but not in a cumbersome way. The words flow with style and grace. The reader is informed as well as moved.
"Sempre Susan" easily passes this reader's acid test for memoir writing: At the end I did not feel as though Sontag had been merely described to me; I felt as if I had known her.
As an avid fan of Nunez's fiction, I must say I was initially struck by the ease with which she moves from novel to memoir; from master architect of a tale to keen observer of a time and place. In this depiction of her time living with Sontag and her son David, Nunez's normally compact writing style becomes more complex, but not in a cumbersome way. The words flow with style and grace. The reader is informed as well as moved.
"Sempre Susan" easily passes this reader's acid test for memoir writing: At the end I did not feel as though Sontag had been merely described to me; I felt as if I had known her.
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Ms. Nunez book is both the latest read and for now, my favorite. Nunez keeps her tone neutral and though there are many hair-raising things told, none is mean-spirited but in fact the opposite.
I adore how Nunez,' who knew Sontag so well, has the opposite temperment to Susan,d also how that sweet and kind temperament doesn't dig dirt. Rather this is the rare author who is kind to Sontag without whitewashing her as one difficult mom, friend and mentor.
But she is never ugly and takes offence when others diss Sontag, which so many do. She never does even when showing Sontag as mighty difficult. This is lovely because Nunez, David Reiff's girlfriend for a few years, is both a good, very good, writer, and because she is not angry about many things most of us would indeed write about as maddening. I loved her maturity, how she says that even if Sontag was not such an intrusive mom she and Rieff would absolutely have lasted longer as a couple, and absolutely broken up eventually. What a mature take when it could be so easy to blame Sontag who was in a way using her son as if he was the father. (See his book too: "Drowning in a Sea of Death".)
This is a short book but I, who knew Sontag and her son slightly, met her about five times, could never be neutral about. So I appreciate that this author went about this as a testimonial to her mentor. I couldn't believe so much is written in this short book that I never knew even though I have been a bit obsessed with Sontag for various reasons. This book is most of all: FAIR. 5 huge stars!!
I adore how Nunez,' who knew Sontag so well, has the opposite temperment to Susan,d also how that sweet and kind temperament doesn't dig dirt. Rather this is the rare author who is kind to Sontag without whitewashing her as one difficult mom, friend and mentor.
But she is never ugly and takes offence when others diss Sontag, which so many do. She never does even when showing Sontag as mighty difficult. This is lovely because Nunez, David Reiff's girlfriend for a few years, is both a good, very good, writer, and because she is not angry about many things most of us would indeed write about as maddening. I loved her maturity, how she says that even if Sontag was not such an intrusive mom she and Rieff would absolutely have lasted longer as a couple, and absolutely broken up eventually. What a mature take when it could be so easy to blame Sontag who was in a way using her son as if he was the father. (See his book too: "Drowning in a Sea of Death".)
This is a short book but I, who knew Sontag and her son slightly, met her about five times, could never be neutral about. So I appreciate that this author went about this as a testimonial to her mentor. I couldn't believe so much is written in this short book that I never knew even though I have been a bit obsessed with Sontag for various reasons. This book is most of all: FAIR. 5 huge stars!!
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Wonderfully done portrait of Sontag
I read this stunning, elegantly written and deeply felt book in 1 sitting. Like all of Nunez's work, it is masterful - and there's not a word out of place. Read more
Published on April 17, 2011 by Elizabeth Benedict
3.0 out of 5 stars
Question
How is this book different from the piece Nunez wrote in Mentors, Muses & Monsters: 30 Writers on the People Who Changed Their Livesd?
Published on March 31, 2011 by Aamir Ansari
