Sigrid Nunez

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Marion Ettlinger

A close-up of Sigrid Nunez.

Sigrid Nunez

Readers of any of Sigrid Nunez' previous works won’t need any convincing to attend this Wisconsin Book Festival event, but just about anyone should be intrigued by the concept behind her ninth novel, The Vulnerables. It is the early days of the pandemic, in New York City. The first-person narrator finds herself unexpectedly parrot-sitting for friends. Unlikely connections grow out of the unprecedented situation in this meditation on our present moment in history and the uses of fiction.

media release: The New York Times–bestselling, National Book Award–winning author of The Friend and What Are You Going Through brings her singular voice to a story about modern life and connection.

Elegy plus comedy is the only way to express how we live in the world today, says a character in Sigrid Nunez’s ninth novel. The Vulnerables offers a meditation on our contemporary era, as a solitary female narrator asks what it means to be alive at this complex moment in history and considers how our present reality affects the way a person looks back on her past.

Humor, to be sure, is a priceless refuge. Equally vital is connection with others, who here include an adrift member of Gen Z and a spirited parrot named Eureka. The Vulnerables reveals what happens when strangers are willing to open their hearts to each other and how far even small acts of caring can go to ease another’s distress. A search for understanding about some of the most critical matters of our time, Nunez’s new novel is also an inquiry into the nature and purpose of writing itself.