From the National Book Award-winning author of The Friend, one of the most celebrated novelists of her generation, the story of a woman’s experiences of war and an unusual friendship
‘Resonant and provocative’ VOGUE
‘One of my favourite authors’ NATALIE PORTMAN
I did not remember a Rouenna Zycinski. I was sure I had never known her. But many years ago, according to her letter, we had been neighbors in the same public housing project, on Staten Island.
A writer receives a letter from an old acquaintance, recalling their shared childhood and asking if they can meet. Though fascinated by the stories Rouenna tells about her life as a combat nurse in Vietnam, the narrator flatly declines her request that they collaborate on a memoir. It is only later, in the aftermath of Rouenna’s shocking death, that the narrator is drawn to write about her friend – and her friend’s war. Writing Rouenna’s story becomes all-consuming: at once a necessity and the only consolation.
‘For Rouenna is about everything: war and remembrance, how we invent our “selves” and why; why we kill ourselves – or live. I was dazzled by this book’ WASHINGTON POST
‘Beautifully written . . . mesmerizing . . . enthralling’ O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE
‘An entirely different kind of war novel . . . What emerges is something that feels like truth’ SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
‘Resonant and provocative’ VOGUE
‘One of my favourite authors’ NATALIE PORTMAN
I did not remember a Rouenna Zycinski. I was sure I had never known her. But many years ago, according to her letter, we had been neighbors in the same public housing project, on Staten Island.
A writer receives a letter from an old acquaintance, recalling their shared childhood and asking if they can meet. Though fascinated by the stories Rouenna tells about her life as a combat nurse in Vietnam, the narrator flatly declines her request that they collaborate on a memoir. It is only later, in the aftermath of Rouenna’s shocking death, that the narrator is drawn to write about her friend – and her friend’s war. Writing Rouenna’s story becomes all-consuming: at once a necessity and the only consolation.
‘For Rouenna is about everything: war and remembrance, how we invent our “selves” and why; why we kill ourselves – or live. I was dazzled by this book’ WASHINGTON POST
‘Beautifully written . . . mesmerizing . . . enthralling’ O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE
‘An entirely different kind of war novel . . . What emerges is something that feels like truth’ SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Reviews
Her spare voice ... gives even the simplest descriptions of place and weather unsettling force and beauty
For Rouenna is about everything: war and remembrance, how we invent our 'selves' and why; why we kill ourselves-or live. I was dazzled by this book
Resonant and provocative
One of the best American novels I've read in a long time ...[an] artful triptych of a novel
Nunez fashions the Vietnam novel we didn't know we were missing
An entirely different kind of war novel...Nunez's Vietnam is assembled with a long lens and crafted in her spare, gorgeous prose....What emerges is something that feels like truth
A stellar addition to-and keen twist on-a genre that up until now has been dominated by men
Beautifully written ... mesmerizing ... enthralling