What Are You Going Through

A Novel

By: Sigrid Nunez

Narrated by: Hillary Huber

Length: 5 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

"As good as The Friend, if not better." (The New York Times)

"Impossible to put down...leavened with wit and tenderness." (People)

"I was dazed by the novel’s grace." (The New Yorker)

The New York Times best-selling, National Book Award-winning author of The Friend brings her singular voice to a story about the meaning of life and death, and the value of companionship.

A woman describes a series of encounters she has with various people in the ordinary course of her life: an ex she runs into by chance at a public forum, an Airbnb owner unsure how to interact with her guests, a stranger who seeks help comforting his elderly mother, a friend of her youth now hospitalized with terminal cancer. In each of these people, the woman finds a common need: the urge to talk about themselves and to have an audience to their experiences. The narrator orchestrates this chorus of voices for the most part as a passive listener, until one of them makes an extraordinary request, drawing her into an intense and transformative experience of her own.

In What Are You Going Through, Nunez brings wisdom, humor, and insight to a novel about human connection and the changing nature of relationships in our times. A surprising story about empathy and the unusual ways one person can help another through hardship, her book offers a moving and provocative portrait of the way we live now.

©2020 Sigrid Nunez (P)2020 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“Richly interiorized ... With both compassion and joy, Nunez contemplates how we survive life’s certain suffering, and don’t, with words and one another.” (Booklist [starred review])

"Short, sharp, and quietly brutal ... spare and elegant and immediate ... What Are You Going Through is concerned with the biggest possible questions and confronts them so bluntly it is sometimes jarring: How should we live in the face of so much suffering? Dryly funny and deeply tender.” (Kirkus Reviews [starred review])

“Much as in Rachel Cusk’s recent work, the narrator is a conduit and sounding board for the stories of others.... Deeply empathetic without being sentimental, this novel explores women’s lives, their choices, and how they support one another.... Highly recommended for readers who favor emotional resonance over escapism during difficult times.” (Library Journal [starred review])

CHOICE

Sigrid Nunez's "What Are You Going Through" resonates with many who are dealing with terminal illness or the infirmity of old age. Nunez creates a story of a friend dealing with the debilitating effects of cancer treatment. The treatment is prolonging her life but at a cost her friend is increasingly unwilling to bare. Her friend has a plan to quit the treatments and either let nature take its course or swallow a pill to end her suffering.

Obviously, not everyone agrees because most American states do not authorize assisted suicide. Nunez offers no definitive opinion. Her main character is helping a friend make a choice about a cancer patient's own life, but the author leaves the choice unmade at the end of her story. At best, Nunez's story leaves reader/listener's on their own about a person's right to take their own life. Maybe that is her point, but it leaves this critic unsatisfied.

Completely brilliant!!!

Like everything Nunez writes, this was gorgeous & smart & witty & very moving.
A great treat & an education.

Ended too soon...

The narration of this book was fantastic, I love the deadpan way in which she narrates the ex husband. This book should be renamed "What's Your Story" as it is a series of stories woven into one main story. The reader hears the stories of neighbors, friends, exes, even cats! The one thing I felt was lacking was the ending, I totally understand why the end was not wrapped up like a gift (because the end is never pretty). I just wanted closure. Overall a beautiful book to remind us to have empathy for others.

Perfect for our times

This novel of ideas is startlingly prescient as it addresses matters of mortality and life’s significance. I found it deeply moving and relevant as I, like everyone, suffer through quarantine. It’s funny, too.

Well narrated narrative

There’s no story to grab you. There’s no mystery. There are no names for the characters in this book. There’s tragedy and plenty of loving gestures. Despite all that is not contained within the book the listener will find universally recognised traits that are commendable.

Depressing…

…but very thought-provoking. It is worth the listen and gives the reader pause as he/she reflects on their own life. Best suited to a mature reader.

Deep, provocative, life changing.

I found this novel so original. We will all face death, but Nunez made it less mysterious. So this is how it might be? I really liked Hillary Huber's rather dispassionate tone.

A Few Words

Beautiful story for women and men of a certain age. Nunez writes with compassion and sensibility .

Brilliant, Insightful, Highly Relevant

Like The Friend, Nunez's previous novel, this is a mediation on illness, aging, friendship, and the current state of the planet. While there is a story--and one that becomes increasingly compelling--it's secondary to thoughtful digressions by the narrator and other characters. (All unnamed.) Nunez writes with such precision and intelligence, I found myself hanging on every insight and observation. The discussions on climate change and mortality feel especially relevant to this moment. All that might make the novel sound grim, but it never is. The work is leavened by Nunez's wit, literary references, and playful, irreverent sense of humor. There's not a moment of sentimentality or maudlin self-pity. Hillary Huber has a very agreeable voice. Her reading is pretty straightforward, which is exactly what this book demands. Highly recommended.

A triumph of the banal but glorious lives

It’s all too ordinary—our lives. But if you care to look closer, there’re stories—even extra-ordinary stories—in them. And once again, Sigurd Nunez has—with a great sense of humour—let us know we’re not alone in this banality. Isn’t that what art is all about?