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Staff Picks Category: Manhattan

Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag by Sigrid Nunez []

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This very short memoir of the association between Ingrid Nunez and Susan Sontag recounts their friendship/mentorship during the time that Sontag was writing “On Photography” and New York literary life in the 1970’s. Nunez was hired by Sontag to help sort out her correspondence. She then became involved with Sontag’s son, David Rieff, and for a period of time the three of them lived in the same apartment. There are many glimpses into Sontag’s writing life and habits which I found very interesting. Susan Sontag is often portrayed as a very difficult person and Nunez does show some instances of how that was true but she also rounds out the portrait with other details that showed Sontag as a complicated person with many aspects including vulnerability, conflicted and humorous and loving.

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Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann []

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A tale of Manhattan in the 70’s, of a remarkable man who walked on a wire strung between the top of the two trade center towers, and of some of the various and sundry people who watched him from below. An anguished Irish monk, a black hooker and her prostitute daughter, a Park Avenue matron mourning her son who died in Vietnam, a twenty-something artist, and a Guatemalan nurse, interact and come together in unpredictable ways. The characters are engaging and real; and the story, written beautifully, won the National Book Award.

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