Play Book Tag discussion

When I read The Friend bySigrid Nunez I didn't realize that I long had another book by her on my TBR, For Rouenna. While searching through my stacks, I found it and realized I have owned it since shortly after it was published in 2002. I was determined to move it to the top of my TBR, and I am so glad, I did.

Though written years before The Friend, For Rouenna shows Nunez's deft touch with prose and deals with many of the same issues which we are familiar with in The Friend. This novel is set with the impact of the Vietnam war in the background as the writer's friend Rouenna was a nurse in the war. One is reminded that for those of us a certain age, that Vietnam often hovers in the background and is so much sharper for those who actually experienced it.

The writer, the voice and narrator of Rouenna has written a first novel and recently broke up with her long time partner. She says :

"Here I am as solitary as I have ever been. At times I feel good about myself, I pat myself on the back: I am independent, I am stoic, I have few needs, I think of Pascal's ssaying that all our unhappiness comes from our inability to stay in our room alone, and feel smug. Other times I feel hopeless, worse than unloved, I feel the way I imagine an animal that has crawled off somewhere to die must feel. I am talking about moments of helpless misery, a drowning in pitch a reckoning of failure and doom that is breathtaking>"

So beautiful and melancholy, it is not a joyful book, but a thoughtful one. It is a character study of both the writer and her friend Rouenna.

I loved it.

I just finished What Are You Going Through. I have a new appreciation for her writing. I liked The Friend, but this one was so much better.

For Rouenna sounds like a book I’d love- my aunt was a nurse in Vietnam, in a burn unit.

On the TBR it goes.

Tracy wrote: "I just finished What Are You Going Through. I have a new appreciation for her writing. I liked The Friend, but this one was so much better.

For Rouenna sounds like a book I’d love..."

I will have to put What Are You Going Through on my wish list. She really is a gifted writer.

If you or anyone else is interested, I have an almost new 2002 edition of For Rouenna, which I would like to pass along. I'm trying to slowly clear things out.

Booknblues wrote: "Tracy wrote: "I just finished What Are You Going Through. I have a new appreciation for her writing. I liked The Friend, but this one was so much better.

For Rouenna sounds like a..."

Thanks, but my library actually has a copy. I’m trying to clear out, too!

Anyone else interested in a copy?