Tag: “The Friend”

A petrified pup, a brilliant book, a nip of neurosis

~ Chris ~ 1 Comment

The dog keeps staring at me. 

Outside, gusty winds render trees, shrubs and bushes lashing percussion fit for a Nine Inch Nails concert. If Trent Reznor showed up, we’d be golden. Instead, I’m gazing into the helpless eyes of a small Schnauzer-terrier that’s terrified of the thrashing flora this warm spring day has unleashed.

Cubby the Super Hound — he should have a cape and rubber suit with nipples on it — has his kryptonites, and one of them is blustery winds that rattle objects into outdoor cacophonies. There goes a recycling bin and all its clattering innards. Whoosh-bang, a gate door swings open and shut, on repeat. And those whipping, whistling trees are declamations of the devil. For him, it must be like dwelling in a haunted house, terrorized by loud, chilling sounds of unseen provenance.

As long as the wind blows, he follows closely wherever I go, as if my pockets are stuffed with treats (they are not). At rest, he cautiously climbs on my lap and quakes like a 25-cent motel bed. 

He looks up at me, pleadingly. I look back at him, pitifully. It’s a staring contest between man and beast. Alas, the poor pup wins every time.

I’m re-reading a deep, delightful little novel titled “The Friend,” which is about writers and writing, friendship, dogs and suicide — a perfect brew of the contemplative, canine and emotionally punchy. It stars a nameless narrator, a middle-aged writer, who’s in a ghostly, one-sided conversation with her close friend, also a writer, who killed himself. It also stars a depressed Great Dane the size of a zebra. The 2018 book won the National Book Award and the author, Sigrid Nunez, has a wry, gently profound way with words and ideas. She has a lot to say about creativity, loss and bonding and does so with chiseled economy washed in a beauty that’s unshowy but electric. “The Friend” runs a mere 212 pages — a wisp, a wonder — but contains worlds of hilarious, heartbreaking humanity. It was made into a movie starring Bill Murray and Naomi Watts, but I won’t watch it. I don’t want to upset the novel’s unruffled perfection.

The South Korea trip — that again — is creeping closer and the old pre-trip jitters are manifesting. Things like: Will I get through customs with Xanax in my luggage? The anti-anxiety meds are a controlled substance and bringing them into Korea requires reams of draconian paperwork, including an absurd handwritten note from your doctor. I’m going to chance it; they don’t always ask. If they do stop me and confiscate it, well, I hope they enjoy. It’s a blast!

I’m also getting flustered, a churning storm in my gut, about possible TSA lines that run longer than a Frederick Wiseman documentary. I can’t stand long lines, and for some reason airport security lines make me irrationally nervous. I find them stressful, mania-inducing, like I did something wrong and I’m about to get busted by some granite-faced goon. I’ve purchased TSA PreCheck, which allows small security short cuts (e.g., you don’t have to take off your Nikes) and theoretically provides shorter waits. We’ll see about that during this latest Congressional crisis. Where’s the Xanax?

How I spent last Saturday, all cheers, jeers and blaring car horns. The signage — priceless:

It was cathartic.

I’m not eavesdropping, really …

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

Recently here I chatted up the new local cafe, the exquisitely hip, I’ve-been-to-India, dump-Trump joint with the jaunty name. I decided to pop into the other local cafe, that name-brand one that just reopened after long renovation. I’m there now — I write in cafes often, a living cliché — and I’m people-watching with a touch of eavesdropping. It’s not at all creepy.

I see a poised, pert, put-together brunette chirping quietly with her friend — hale, happy twentysomethings talking about job interviews and uproarious Facebook posts. She looks like she loves dinner parties and charades. She fancies a good daiquiri. Her favorite TV show is “This Is Us.” I’m just surmising, but I know I’m right.

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A hypothetical cafe scene. They look ecstatic.

Elsewhere overheard: “You know, Mary, I’m not comfortable making those calls.” 

Enter: a 60-ish gent in a baggy Bill Cosby sweater, with stubble that looks like powdered sugar sprinkled on his pink pate. “I begin my teaching tomorrow. Seventy students!” he tells his companion, a flute-thin young woman with lank auburn hair who, I’m certain, is a teacher’s assistant. 

The fellow is loud and a roaring bore. He gesticulates like a madman. She sips some coffee and it goes down the wrong pipe. The ensuing coughing fit is something to behold. Napkins fly. We sympathize.

“We’re getting off track here,” an elderly woman laughs. She’s talking to a slightly younger woman at a corner table about scheduling some sort of meeting at her home. “Should we do RSVPs?” the younger woman asks. 

I soon gather they’re organizing a book club. They are perusing a list of titles. The younger woman describes a book that’s “very well-written” that sounds like a kind of real estate thriller. The authors Andre Dubus III and Michael Frayn (“He’s British”) are mentioned. “The person who selects the book is the host of the meeting,” says the younger woman.

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I want to chime in and suggest the novel I just finished, “The Friend,” Sigrid Nunez’s brisk, deceptively simple yet profound meditation on the writer’s life and friendships between people and dogs and people and people. It won the 2018 National Book Award. It’s lovely.

I pick the book. I’ll be the host. I’ll serve baked Alaska.

Someone just said “hypothesize” in mixed company. 

I ask the barista what she’s reading these days — we often yack about books — and she flashes her copy of the novel “The Secret History,” Donna Tartt’s 1991 cult smash. I kind of wrinkle my nose while evincing interest, and tell her I tried and failed to read Tartt’s 2014 Pulitzer-winning epic “The Goldfinch.” I read about half and put it down. The novel is divisive: You love it or loathe it.

She adores it. “What didn’t you like about it?” she asks. I thought it was cutesy, candied, implausible, whimsical and too redolent of Dickens. 

“It is Dickensian,” the barista says, and with that simple word my day is made.

Elephant adoption — it’s a real thing. Two ladies are talking about it. One explains that it costs $50 a year to adopt an African pachyderm and “each month they email you a picture and an update about your elephant.” She has an elephant. “I went to visit the orphanage in Nairobi,” she says. I suddenly want an elephant. 

“It’s my parents’ 43rd anniversary,” a 30-ish guy tells his friend. “That’s a long time to be sniffin’ someone else’s toots.” 

I missed most of the soliloquy, but a youngish man was rhapsodizing about coffee and espresso and the joys of sitting on his porch, and out of his mouth popped this phrase: “the waking beauty of life.”

Spectacular.