You may remember that Jenna reviewed Sigrid Nunez’s National Book Award winning The Friend earlier in the year, which still remains one of her favourite reads for 2019. When a prolific, yet not as well known author wins such a prize, publishers often go to their backlist to republish an older title to give it a second life and this is what has happened with Nunez’s The Last of Her Kind, originally published in 2006.
This is a layered, intelligent and considered tale of female friendship, politics and cultural disruption in the 1960’s, New York City. Scholarship student Georgette George is roomed with the wealthy Ann Drayton at Barnard College. An intense friendship develops but ends as Ann’s journey into activism becomes more hard line and extreme.
However, Ann is brought back into George’s life years later after she is arrested for murder.
Listen to Jenna’s review below: