Staff Pick
Salvation City is a coming-of-age tale that is complicated by far more than the usual adolescent angst. Thirteen-year-old Cole lost both parents to a flu pandemic and nearly died himself. Cole initially ends up in an orphanage, but is eventually placed with an evangelical family in the tiny town of Salvation City, Indiana. Nunez does a beautiful job of depicting both Fundamental Christianity and staunch atheism without demonizing either side, and while her characters argue heatedly about their beliefs, she portrays them gracefully. Full of small moments that are quiet, dark, sweet, bitter, harrowing, breathless, joyful, and just plain sad, the story unfolds as Cole begins to understand, or at least have an inkling about, his own life. Impeccably written, Salvation City is a wonder. Recommended By Dianah H., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
A poignant, intimate memoir of one of Americas most esteemed and fascinating cultural figures, and a deeply felt tribute.
Sigrid Nunez was an aspiring writer when she first met Susan Sontag, already a legendary figure known for her polemical essays, blinding intelligence, and edgy personal style. Sontag introduced Nunez to her son, the writer David Rieff, and the two began dating. Soon Nunez moved into the apartment that Rieff and Sontag shared. As Sontag told Nunez, Who says we have to live like everyone else?”
Sontags influence on Nunez, who went on to become a successful novelist, would be profound. Described by Nunez as a natural mentor” who saw educating others as both a moral obligation and a source of endless pleasure, Sontag inevitably infected those around her with her many cultural and intellectual passions. In this poignant, intimate memoir, Nunez speaks of her gratitude for having had, as an early model, someone who held such an exalted, unironic view of the writers vocation.”
Published more than six years after Sontags death, Sempre Susan is a startlingly truthful portrait of this outsized personality, who made being an intellectual a glamorous occupation.
Review
“Nunez, an uncompromising talent in her own right, offers the most vibrant and multifaceted portrait of Sontag to date.” —
Vogue “Sontag once wrote about feeling estranged from the ‘Susan Sontag who stood on the spine of the books she had written. In Nunezs Sempre Susan, the gap between the writer and the person who wrote the books is made all the more vividly real—a reminder of the extraordinary transformative work that goes into writing in the first place.” —Slate??
“Nunezs book is an elegy for a great woman and the company she kept, the vanished salon where she was the center.” —The New York Observer
Synopsis
From the critically acclaimed author of The Friend, a breakout novel that imagines the aftermath of pandemic flu, as seen through the eyes of a thirteen-year-old boy uncertain of his destiny.
His family's sole survivor after a flu pandemic has killed large numbers of people worldwide, Cole Vining is lucky to have found refuge with the evangelical Pastor Wyatt and his wife in a small town in southern Indiana. As the world outside has grown increasingly anarchic, Salvation City has been spared much of the devastation, and its residents have renewed their preparations for the Rapture.
Grateful for the shelter and love of his foster family (and relieved to have been saved from the horrid, overrun orphanages that have sprung up around the country), Cole begins to form relationships within the larger community. But despite his affection for this place, he struggles with memories of the very different world in which he was reared. Is there room to love both Wyatt and his parents? Are they still his parents if they are no longer there? As others around him grow increasingly fixated on the hope of salvation and the new life to come through the imminent Rapture, Cole begins to conceive of a different future for himself, one in which his own dreams of heroism seem within reach.
Written in Sigrid Nunez's deceptively simple style, Salvation City is a story of love, betrayal, and forgiveness, weaving the deeply affecting story of a young boy's transformation with a profound meditation on the meaning of belief and heroism.
Synopsis
From the critically acclaimed author of The Friend, the 2018 winner of the National Book Award, comes a moving novel that imagines the aftermath of pandemic flu as seen through the eyes of a thirteen-year-old boy uncertain of his destiny.
His family's sole survivor after a flu pandemic has killed large numbers of people worldwide, Cole Vining is lucky to have found refuge with the evangelical Pastor Wyatt and his wife in a small town in southern Indiana. As the world outside has grown increasingly anarchic, Salvation City has been spared much of the devastation, and its residents have renewed their preparations for the Rapture.
Grateful for the shelter and love of his foster family (and relieved to have been saved from the horrid, overrun orphanages that have sprung up around the country), Cole begins to form relationships within the larger community. But despite his affection for this place, he struggles with memories of the very different world in which he was reared. Is there room to love both Wyatt and his parents? Are they still his parents if they are no longer there? As others around him grow increasingly fixated on the hope of salvation and the new life to come through the imminent Rapture, Cole begins to conceive of a different future for himself, one in which his own dreams of heroism seem within reach.
Written in Sigrid Nunez's deceptively simple style, Salvation City is a story of love, betrayal, and forgiveness, weaving the deeply affecting story of a young boy's transformation with a profound meditation on the meaning of belief and heroism.
Synopsis
From the National Book Award-winning author of The Friend, the moving and eerily relevant novel that imagines the aftermath of a Coronavirus-like pandemic as seen through the eyes of a thirteen-year-old boy uncertain of his destiny.
His family's sole survivor after a flu pandemic has killed large numbers of people worldwide, Cole Vining is lucky to have found refuge with the evangelical Pastor Wyatt and his wife in a small town in southern Indiana. As the world outside has grown increasingly anarchic, Salvation City has been spared much of the devastation, and its residents have renewed their preparations for the Rapture.
Grateful for the shelter and love of his foster family (and relieved to have been saved from the horrid, overrun orphanages that have sprung up around the country), Cole begins to form relationships within the larger community. But despite his affection for this place, he struggles with memories of the very different world in which he was reared. Is there room to love both Wyatt and his parents? Are they still his parents if they are no longer there? As others around him grow increasingly fixated on the hope of salvation and the new life to come through the imminent Rapture, Cole begins to conceive of a different future for himself, one in which his own dreams of heroism seem within reach.
Written in Sigrid Nunez's deceptively simple style, Salvation City is a story of love, betrayal, and forgiveness, weaving the deeply affecting story of a young boy's transformation with a profound meditation on the meaning of belief and heroism.
Synopsis
"A NOVEL FOR LIFE AFTER THE PANDEMIC...Scratches a particular imaginative itch that we are all experiencing at the precipice of a new era. -- The New Yorker
From the National Book Award-winning author of The Friend comes a moving and eerily relevant novel that imagines the aftermath of a pandemic virus as seen through the eyes of a thirteen-year-old boy uncertain of his destiny.
His family's sole survivor after a flu pandemic has killed large numbers of people worldwide, Cole Vining is lucky to have found refuge with the evangelical Pastor Wyatt and his wife in a small town in southern Indiana. As the world outside has grown increasingly anarchic, Salvation City has been spared much of the devastation, and its residents have renewed their preparations for the Rapture.
Grateful for the shelter and love of his foster family (and relieved to have been saved from the horrid, overrun orphanages that have sprung up around the country), Cole begins to form relationships within the larger community. But despite his affection for this place, he struggles with memories of the very different world in which he was reared. Is there room to love both Wyatt and his parents? Are they still his parents if they are no longer there? As others around him grow increasingly fixated on the hope of salvation and the new life to come through the imminent Rapture, Cole begins to conceive of a different future for himself, one in which his own dreams of heroism seem within reach.
Written in Sigrid Nunez's deceptively simple style, Salvation City is a story of love, betrayal, and forgiveness, weaving the deeply affecting story of a young boy's transformation with a profound meditation on the meaning of belief and heroism.
Synopsis
From an award-winning author comes a "wise and richly humane coming-of-age novel" (O: The Oprah Magazine).
In an American landscape devastated by a flu pandemic, orphaned thirteen-year-old Cole is rescued by an evangelical couple. Adjusting to a new life, he struggles with memories of the past. As other survivors become dedicated to their own vision of utopia, Cole imagines a wholly different future for himself.
Written in Sigrid Nunez's deceptively simple style, Salvation City is a story of love, betrayal, and forgiveness, blending the deeply affecting story of a young boy's transformation with a profound meditation on belief, heroism, and the true meaning of salvation.
About the Author
Sigrid Nunez has published six critically acclaimed novels, including The Last of Her Kind and Salvation City. She has contributed to The New York Times, Harpers, and McSweeneys, among many others. She lives in New York City.