Nunez, now 71, was Susan Sontag’s assistant in the mid-1970s. At the time, the intellectual was not yet the cultural icon we know. But she’s already somewhat of a mythical character when Nunez sets foot in her Upper West Side apartment for the first time.
First observation: the penthouserented for $435 a month at the time (!), is questionably clean and the patio is boarded up because the dog is pooping there…
During one of his visits, Nunez meets David, Sontag’s son, who will become his lover. In a short time, Nunez therefore settles down with the mother – who is recovering from her first cancer – and the son. It looks like a (good) Woody Allen movie!
Nunez’s book is not at all a biography (for that you have to read Benjamin Moser’s brick, sontag, published by Christian Bourgois). Rather, it’s an assemblage of Polaroids of Sontag’s life over a period of time. It’s all about how she dresses, what she eats (a can of cream of mushroom soup, a packet of bacon), how she talks to waiters in restaurants, how she hates nature, public transport, certain expressions.
Did Nunez want to debunk the Sontag myth? She says she admires her, she calls her a friend and a mentor, but we also feel her disappointment at times.
Nunez waited until 2011, seven years after the death of Susan Sontag, before publishing this book which has just been translated into French.
Since then, she has become a teacher and, above all, a writer. You should also read his wonderful novel. the friend which won the National Book Award in 2018.
That said, we close Semper Susan without really understanding what motivated the writing. Lucid tribute or friendly betrayal? The answer, we said, lies somewhere in between.
Semper Susan: Memories on Sontag
Sigrid Nunez
Translated from English (United States) by Ariane Bataille Globe
150 pages