Sempre Susan

Novelist Nunez (Salvation City) first met essayist, critic, and fiction writer Susan Sontag when she took a part-time job helping Sontag with correspondence in 1976 as Sontag recovered from breast cancer surgery. Later Nunez had a relationship with Sontag's son, David, and lived for a time with both of them. An aspiring young novelist at the time, Nunez here writes of being in awe of Sontag, who, as a leading commentator on modern culture, wrote about such diverse topics as pornography, photography, illness, and revolution and seemed to know everyone in the arts and generate excitement wherever she went. Although Sontag could be demanding and narcissistic, Nunez found her a valuable mentor with an engaging sense of humor, contrary to her public reputation. Surprisingly, Nunez discovered that despite her accomplishments Sontag was plagued by insecurity and a sense of failure, perhaps the result of her dysfunctional childhood.