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A Feather on the Breath of God
A haunting, heart-rending first novel by an award-winning writer that speaks to the difficulties of forging an identity in a world of different cultures--and to the complexities of familial and sexual love.
180 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
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4182 people want to read
About the author
Sigrid Nunez
34 books1,771 followersSigrid Nunez has published seven novels, including A Feather on the Breath of God, The Last of Her Kind, Salvation City, and, most recently, The Friend. She is also the author of Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag. Among the journals to which she has contributed are The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, The Paris Review, Threepenny Review, Harper’s, McSweeney’s, Tin House, and The Believer. Her work has also appeared in several anthologies, including four Pushcart Prize volumes and four anthologies of Asian American literature.
Sigrid’s honors and awards include a Whiting Writer’s Award, a Berlin Prize Fellowship, and two awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters: the Rosenthal Foundation Award and the Rome Prize in Literature. She has taught at Columbia, Princeton, Boston University, and the New School, and has been a visiting writer or writer in residence at Amherst, Smith, Baruch, Vassar, and the University of California, Irvine, among others. In spring, 2019, she will be visiting writer at Syracuse University. Sigrid has also been on the faculty of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and of several other writers’ conferences across the country. She lives in New York City.
Sigrid’s honors and awards include a Whiting Writer’s Award, a Berlin Prize Fellowship, and two awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters: the Rosenthal Foundation Award and the Rome Prize in Literature. She has taught at Columbia, Princeton, Boston University, and the New School, and has been a visiting writer or writer in residence at Amherst, Smith, Baruch, Vassar, and the University of California, Irvine, among others. In spring, 2019, she will be visiting writer at Syracuse University. Sigrid has also been on the faculty of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and of several other writers’ conferences across the country. She lives in New York City.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 293 reviews
August 9, 2018
Sigrid Nunez’s A Feather on the Breath of God is a compelling and thought provoking exploration of memory, displacement and identity. Like her most recent novel, The Friend (which I read earlier this year), A Feather on the Breath of God has a very raw and personal feel to it. The novel is divided into four essays. The first, Chang, explores the narrator’s relationship with her emotionally distant Chinese-Panamanian father. The second, Christa, recounts memories and fragments of memories as the narrator seeks to come to terms with the very different relationship she had with her homesick German mother. The third section, A Feather on the Breath of God, recounts the narrator’s dream of being a ballerina. The fourth section, Immigrant Love, considers the narrator’s affair with a Russian immigrant. One of the interesting aspects of Nunez’s observations is that the first three sections reflect three fairly distinct worlds of the narrator’s life. Despite that, they are most definitely connected.
How does Nunez’s narrator judge the value of her admittedly fragmented recollections? She evokes the authority of her therapist, Sigmund Freud, T.S. Eliot and even Hank Williams. However, while each provides insight, none of them ultimately clarifies meaning. Instead, the way these memories resonate emotionally provides a clearer insight into the narrator’s identity.
Everything comes together brilliantly in the final section, not because the narrator has come to terms with any specific memories or their impact, but because the personality and passion of the narrator can be seen so clearly in her ill-advised affair. What we see in Nunez’s writing is a mind at work, continually processing events and their meaning. 4.5 stars.
How does Nunez’s narrator judge the value of her admittedly fragmented recollections? She evokes the authority of her therapist, Sigmund Freud, T.S. Eliot and even Hank Williams. However, while each provides insight, none of them ultimately clarifies meaning. Instead, the way these memories resonate emotionally provides a clearer insight into the narrator’s identity.
Everything comes together brilliantly in the final section, not because the narrator has come to terms with any specific memories or their impact, but because the personality and passion of the narrator can be seen so clearly in her ill-advised affair. What we see in Nunez’s writing is a mind at work, continually processing events and their meaning. 4.5 stars.
July 31, 2022
Honest. Beautiful. Unique.
Sigrid Nunez’s Feather on the Breath of God is the closest thing I've found to a perfect novel. I suspect I will read this book several times, reverse engineer it, and try to divine its secrets.
The details of this book were so good that it was actually hard to believe this wasn't a memoir. Maybe this book is a memoir in a roundabout way. After all, it's easier to tell the truth in fiction, a truth unbound by facts.
What makes this book so great?
Some of the elements are easy to recognize. The book emphasizes fallible memory, fragmentation, free association, and montage--styles that resist attempts to totalize meaning. In my experience, many great novels walk that fine line between meaning and disorder. The writer teases meanings and coherence while presenting an impossible array of loose threads.
Above all, a great novel should be honest. This novel often feels like pure honesty.
Sigrid Nunez’s Feather on the Breath of God is the closest thing I've found to a perfect novel. I suspect I will read this book several times, reverse engineer it, and try to divine its secrets.
The details of this book were so good that it was actually hard to believe this wasn't a memoir. Maybe this book is a memoir in a roundabout way. After all, it's easier to tell the truth in fiction, a truth unbound by facts.
What makes this book so great?
Some of the elements are easy to recognize. The book emphasizes fallible memory, fragmentation, free association, and montage--styles that resist attempts to totalize meaning. In my experience, many great novels walk that fine line between meaning and disorder. The writer teases meanings and coherence while presenting an impossible array of loose threads.
Above all, a great novel should be honest. This novel often feels like pure honesty.
March 16, 2021
My third from Nunez, after The Friend and What Are You Going Through, and my most loved of her books thus far, cementing her as one of my favourite authors. Like the other two, it’s narrated by an unnamed woman who defines herself by the people she encounters and the experiences she has in an unforgiving but still somehow beautiful and funny old world. From the little I know of Nunez, this seems the closest to autofiction, especially in terms of her parental origins. The father, Chang, born in Panama and raised in China, immigrated to the USA at age 12. In Germany for war service, he met her mother, Christa, just after VE Day.
Chang and Christa, the subjects of the book’s first two sections – accounting for about half the length – were opposites and had a volatile relationship. Their home in the New York City projects was an argumentative place the narrator was eager to escape. She felt she never knew her father, a humourless man who lost touch with Chinese culture. He worked on the kitchen staff of a hospital and never learned English properly. Christa, by contrast, was fastidious about English grammar but never lost her thick accent. An obstinate and contradictory woman, she resented her lot in life and never truly loved Chang, but was good with her hands and loved baking and sewing for her daughters.
Growing up, the narrator never knew quite what to make of her mixed, “exotic” background. For a time, she escaped into ballet, a tantalizingly female discipline that threw up a lot of issues: class pretensions, the eroticization of young girls and of pain, and eating disorders. When she went without solid food for days at a time, she felt she was approaching the weightlessness Saint Hildegard likened to being “a feather on the breath of God.” The final chapter, “Immigrant Love,” jumps ahead to when the narrator taught English as a foreign language and had an affair with Vadim, a married Russian taxi driver full of charisma but also of flaws. This finale is a brilliant twist on her parents’ situation, and a decision to teach English in China brings things full circle, promising a connection to her late father’s heritage.
The strategy of identifying the self by the key relationships and obsessions of a life struck me as spot on. This short novel punches above its weight, with profound observations on every page. Its specific situations are engaging, yet it speaks to the universals of how we cope with a troublesome past. “One wants a way of looking back without anger or bitterness or shame. One wants to be able to tell everything without blaming or apologizing,” Nunez writes, crystallizing her frank, wry approach. I’m eager to read all the rest of her oeuvre.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
Chang and Christa, the subjects of the book’s first two sections – accounting for about half the length – were opposites and had a volatile relationship. Their home in the New York City projects was an argumentative place the narrator was eager to escape. She felt she never knew her father, a humourless man who lost touch with Chinese culture. He worked on the kitchen staff of a hospital and never learned English properly. Christa, by contrast, was fastidious about English grammar but never lost her thick accent. An obstinate and contradictory woman, she resented her lot in life and never truly loved Chang, but was good with her hands and loved baking and sewing for her daughters.
Growing up, the narrator never knew quite what to make of her mixed, “exotic” background. For a time, she escaped into ballet, a tantalizingly female discipline that threw up a lot of issues: class pretensions, the eroticization of young girls and of pain, and eating disorders. When she went without solid food for days at a time, she felt she was approaching the weightlessness Saint Hildegard likened to being “a feather on the breath of God.” The final chapter, “Immigrant Love,” jumps ahead to when the narrator taught English as a foreign language and had an affair with Vadim, a married Russian taxi driver full of charisma but also of flaws. This finale is a brilliant twist on her parents’ situation, and a decision to teach English in China brings things full circle, promising a connection to her late father’s heritage.
The strategy of identifying the self by the key relationships and obsessions of a life struck me as spot on. This short novel punches above its weight, with profound observations on every page. Its specific situations are engaging, yet it speaks to the universals of how we cope with a troublesome past. “One wants a way of looking back without anger or bitterness or shame. One wants to be able to tell everything without blaming or apologizing,” Nunez writes, crystallizing her frank, wry approach. I’m eager to read all the rest of her oeuvre.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
Want to read
November 4, 2024one of my favorite authors' favorite book by one of my favorite authors
August 26, 2023
hiç planlamadığım bir biçimde sigrid nunez’in türkçede yayımlanmış bütün kitaplarını okumuş oldum. çok da sevdim.
“tanrı’nın nefesinde bir tüy” sanırım en otobiyografik romanlarından biri. açıkçası nunez’in kendini sakınmadan anlatmasını çok seviyorum. yine adı olmayan bir anlatıcı var. kitap 4 bölümden oluşuyor. ilk bölüm babasını ikinci bölüm annesini anlatıyor. bu iki bölüm bence mükemmeldi. çünkü anılara dönerek panamalı-çinli babasıyla alman annesini öyle hakiki detaylarla anlatıyor ki bize.
duble göçmenlik, 2. dünya savaşında tanışan anne baba, ingilizce öğrenmeyi reddeden, sadece çalışan mutsuz bir baba, aşırı dominant ve almanlığını sürdüren, evini özleyen anne, kötü bir evlilik… üstüne toplu konutlarda geçen yoksulluk dolu bir yaşam. anlatıcı çocukluğunu araya katarak anne baba portrelerini hep kurduğu o uzak anlatımla çok ustaca çizmiş. ki kendisinin de hikayesi aynı.
sonraki bölümde bale yaparak hayata veb topluma karışma çabalarını, en son bölümde de rus bir göçmenle yaşadığı ve kopması çok zor olan ilişkiyi anlatıyor. son bölüm aslında göçmenliğin onun için önemini kanıtlar nitelikte. neden kopamadığını, terapi seanslarını, kendisini didiklemesini anlatıyor uzun uzun. son iki bölüm ne kadar anı ne kadar kurmaca bilmiyoruz tabii. ama bu göçmenle yaşadıklarının ona geri dönüşü çin’e kökenine gidip oradaki çocuklara ingilizce öğretmek oluyor. bu da bir nevi artık suskun, mutsuz, üç kızını birbirinden ayıramayacak kadar ilgisiz babasıyla barışması demek.
ilk iki bölümü çok sevdim, kitap sonra bence parlaklığını kaybetti ya da bu benim anılara olan takıntımdan kaynaklanıyor. ama son iki bölüm kötü olmasa da ilk ikisine yaklaşamadı bence. fatih yiğitler gayet iyi çevirmiş. sigrid nunez artık ne yazsa okurum dediğim yazarlardan.
“tanrı’nın nefesinde bir tüy” sanırım en otobiyografik romanlarından biri. açıkçası nunez’in kendini sakınmadan anlatmasını çok seviyorum. yine adı olmayan bir anlatıcı var. kitap 4 bölümden oluşuyor. ilk bölüm babasını ikinci bölüm annesini anlatıyor. bu iki bölüm bence mükemmeldi. çünkü anılara dönerek panamalı-çinli babasıyla alman annesini öyle hakiki detaylarla anlatıyor ki bize.
duble göçmenlik, 2. dünya savaşında tanışan anne baba, ingilizce öğrenmeyi reddeden, sadece çalışan mutsuz bir baba, aşırı dominant ve almanlığını sürdüren, evini özleyen anne, kötü bir evlilik… üstüne toplu konutlarda geçen yoksulluk dolu bir yaşam. anlatıcı çocukluğunu araya katarak anne baba portrelerini hep kurduğu o uzak anlatımla çok ustaca çizmiş. ki kendisinin de hikayesi aynı.
sonraki bölümde bale yaparak hayata veb topluma karışma çabalarını, en son bölümde de rus bir göçmenle yaşadığı ve kopması çok zor olan ilişkiyi anlatıyor. son bölüm aslında göçmenliğin onun için önemini kanıtlar nitelikte. neden kopamadığını, terapi seanslarını, kendisini didiklemesini anlatıyor uzun uzun. son iki bölüm ne kadar anı ne kadar kurmaca bilmiyoruz tabii. ama bu göçmenle yaşadıklarının ona geri dönüşü çin’e kökenine gidip oradaki çocuklara ingilizce öğretmek oluyor. bu da bir nevi artık suskun, mutsuz, üç kızını birbirinden ayıramayacak kadar ilgisiz babasıyla barışması demek.
ilk iki bölümü çok sevdim, kitap sonra bence parlaklığını kaybetti ya da bu benim anılara olan takıntımdan kaynaklanıyor. ama son iki bölüm kötü olmasa da ilk ikisine yaklaşamadı bence. fatih yiğitler gayet iyi çevirmiş. sigrid nunez artık ne yazsa okurum dediğim yazarlardan.
December 26, 2021
I like the way Nunez writes so much. A Feather on the Breath of God is her first novel and like The Friend and What are You Going Through, the unnamed narrator has a mesmerizing voice. Her commentary about the immigrant experience through her German mother, Chinese father and her Russian lover is compelling and profound.
March 4, 2013
What I kept thinking over and over as I read this book is how incredibly true it feels--as if I were looking right through the words to the author's deepest heart. Late in the book, there is a description of a certain kind of sex feeling like not only one's clothes, but one's skin, had been peeled away--and the writing here seemed to me to have the same absolutely naked quality. Spare and strange and heartful, and unusually structured--in a way it's like four separate essays (on the speaker's father, mother, her study of ballet, and an intense love affair) that the author makes no overt efforts to link, but they are deeply connected... not only through the obvious fact that the speaker's the same throughout, but through a particular vision and use of language and way of being in the world. I loved this book; so glad I own it and didn't get it from the library; it's one that makes me happy just because I know it's physically there, and ready to be picked up again any time.
February 22, 2021
"Work as hard as you can. Make it beautiful. How can you argue with rules as pure and simple as that?"
I seem to be doing pretty well with my recent purchases of new editions of slightly older novels and non-fiction works by female writers with enticing covers (Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead, Sisters By a River, Approaching Eye Level, Peking Picnic and The Faces are examples which immediately spring to mind...), and this was no exception. I guess sometimes judging a book by its cover pays off!
Nunez's 1995 debut, A Feather on the Breath of God is - from what I can tell from some cursory Googling - a semi-autobiographical work. The protagonist, like Nunez, is the daughter of a Chinese-Panamanian father and German mother and is a first generation American, who grew up in the projects in New York and dreamed of becoming a dancer as a child. These are all the similarities that I've managed to quickly fact-check, but it seems likely that a lot more of the narrative contains more than a kernel of truth -- including the narrator's complex relationship with her parents, to pick up on one example.
The book is divided into four sections: Chang, which focuses on the narrator's father; Christa, which focuses on her mother and her life and personality; A Feather on the Breath Of God which follows the narrator's dancing career; and finally Immigrant Love, which tells the story of her doomed relationship with a Russian immigrant from Odessa who she meets when teaching English as a foreign language.
Having read The Friend and more recently What Are You Going Through I didn't feel like I wholly 'got' the hype around Nunez's writing, but with AFOTBOG (what an abbreviation!) I completely do. This pushed all the right buttons for me: elegant writing that was never fussy, a taught narrative and thought-provoking themes surrounding language, love and identity.
Highly recommended, and I can't wait to read more of Nunez's work - perhaps I'll give Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag (Google tells me when writing this Nunez began having an affair with Sontag's son?!) or The Last of Her Kind a try next.
December 10, 2019
I love Sigrid Nunez. Every novel I have read of her (so far) has been extremely satisfying.
A Feather on the Breath of God is weaker than the others I have read The Last of Her Kind--which was wonderful--and The Friend, also excellent) but still greatly interesting and well-written.
The narrator is the unnamed daughter of a German immigrant mother and a Panamanian-Chinese father. Each parent is described by her in their own chapter and then she moves into the present with her struggle to find herself as a woman (determined after the nightmare marriage of her parents) to never marry but still looking for salvation in the arms of a man. If this is cliched then so is her desire; nevertheless, it is still a real force for many women.
I found the section about her mother particularly powerful, maybe because there were similarities with my own mother as well as the fact that the relationship between the mother and daughter is strongly presented. The writing about the narrator's short-lived but intense relationship with ballet was also very interesting, especially in light of the spotlight thrown on women and body image in this country. (But again this section also brought back many memories of my own so that may have contributed to how attracted I was to it--but also it is so strongly written that that was, in part, why it brought back the memories).
Nunez is a powerful narrator of contemporary women's lives. Without being didactic, she deftly paints portraits of the internal landscape of individual women that connect with a larger story of women today without losing the personal story.
Another fine work by Nunez whose work I will continue to seek out.
A Feather on the Breath of God is weaker than the others I have read The Last of Her Kind--which was wonderful--and The Friend, also excellent) but still greatly interesting and well-written.
The narrator is the unnamed daughter of a German immigrant mother and a Panamanian-Chinese father. Each parent is described by her in their own chapter and then she moves into the present with her struggle to find herself as a woman (determined after the nightmare marriage of her parents) to never marry but still looking for salvation in the arms of a man. If this is cliched then so is her desire; nevertheless, it is still a real force for many women.
I found the section about her mother particularly powerful, maybe because there were similarities with my own mother as well as the fact that the relationship between the mother and daughter is strongly presented. The writing about the narrator's short-lived but intense relationship with ballet was also very interesting, especially in light of the spotlight thrown on women and body image in this country. (But again this section also brought back many memories of my own so that may have contributed to how attracted I was to it--but also it is so strongly written that that was, in part, why it brought back the memories).
Nunez is a powerful narrator of contemporary women's lives. Without being didactic, she deftly paints portraits of the internal landscape of individual women that connect with a larger story of women today without losing the personal story.
Another fine work by Nunez whose work I will continue to seek out.
February 9, 2025
this is my third sigrid nunez and she's becoming a fav
February 26, 2023
Çinli-Panamalı bir baba ve Alman bir annenin çocuğu olan isimsiz kahramanımız anlatmaya başlıyor. Önce babasını, ardından annesini.
Anlattıklarıyla yaşadıklarına dair bir şeyler kurguluyoruz aslında. Geçebileceği sınavları, karşılaşacağı zorlukları az çok tahmin edebiliyoruz.
Birbirine zıt karakter ve kültürden gelen ebeveynlerin ona kattıkları çok evet ama ondan götürdükleri de yok değil.
Sonra kahramanımız tutkularını anlatmaya başlıyor, önce baleye ardından bir erkeğe sarılıyor. Düşmekten korktuğundan değil; sürekli düşebileceğini bildiğinden yapıyor bunu.
.
Dost adlı kitabını (ki bu eseri yazara ABD Ulusal Kitap Ödülü’nü getirmişti) sıkça gördüğüm ancak bir türlü edinip okumadığım Sigrid Nunez ile tanışma kitabım oldu ‘Tanrının Nefesinde Bir Tüy’. Bilhassa karakter analizleriyle, doğal ve çıplak diliyle pek sevdim bu eseri. Arka kapak yazısında şöyle denmiş: ‘İşte Nunez’in yalın, vurucu ve samimi bir dille kaleme aldığı bu kitabı bitiren herkesin kendine sorabileceği bir soru: ‘Tanrı’nın nefesinde bir tüy olmak nedir? Esasen kırılganlıkla mı ilişkilendirilebilir, yoksa güçle mi?’
Sanırım benim bu soruya cevabım: ‘kırılgan bir güç’le olurdu..
.
Kitaplığımda bekleyen yazarın bir diğer eseri Daima Susan’ı da çok bekletmeden okumak niyetindeyim.
.
Fatih Yiğitler çevirisi, İlknur Muştu kapak tasarımıyla ~
Anlattıklarıyla yaşadıklarına dair bir şeyler kurguluyoruz aslında. Geçebileceği sınavları, karşılaşacağı zorlukları az çok tahmin edebiliyoruz.
Birbirine zıt karakter ve kültürden gelen ebeveynlerin ona kattıkları çok evet ama ondan götürdükleri de yok değil.
Sonra kahramanımız tutkularını anlatmaya başlıyor, önce baleye ardından bir erkeğe sarılıyor. Düşmekten korktuğundan değil; sürekli düşebileceğini bildiğinden yapıyor bunu.
.
Dost adlı kitabını (ki bu eseri yazara ABD Ulusal Kitap Ödülü’nü getirmişti) sıkça gördüğüm ancak bir türlü edinip okumadığım Sigrid Nunez ile tanışma kitabım oldu ‘Tanrının Nefesinde Bir Tüy’. Bilhassa karakter analizleriyle, doğal ve çıplak diliyle pek sevdim bu eseri. Arka kapak yazısında şöyle denmiş: ‘İşte Nunez’in yalın, vurucu ve samimi bir dille kaleme aldığı bu kitabı bitiren herkesin kendine sorabileceği bir soru: ‘Tanrı’nın nefesinde bir tüy olmak nedir? Esasen kırılganlıkla mı ilişkilendirilebilir, yoksa güçle mi?’
Sanırım benim bu soruya cevabım: ‘kırılgan bir güç’le olurdu..
.
Kitaplığımda bekleyen yazarın bir diğer eseri Daima Susan’ı da çok bekletmeden okumak niyetindeyim.
.
Fatih Yiğitler çevirisi, İlknur Muştu kapak tasarımıyla ~
June 25, 2022
‘About the Germans Nietzsche has said: They are of the day before yesterday and of the day after tomorrow; they have no today. Coming of age, my mother had shared in the dream of a grandiose destiny. Now she became one throbbing nerve of longing.’
It might just have been my disinterest in ‘ballet’ and post-war reflections which heavily influenced my rating of the book. The ‘mother’, and ‘Vadim’ are definitely very strong characters in the book – overwhelming even. I think I was craving for more balance. Even the narrator’s ‘friends’ were quite awful. Everything was just rather ‘bleak’ (and without any comic relief or something absurd to sort of – bring a much needed variation to the plotline/writing). The writing’s not terrible, I just wanted more. It lacked something, but I’m not sure what (in particular).
‘…when I meet a man who says he is about to marry an Italian woman but has no intention of learning Italian. What kind of love is that? Ultimately, I decide against registering for a course in Russian, because I know what this would mean. I have no business learning Russian. I have to leave…’
October 9, 2020
This is a slim novel that could have been longer. It is written by a very good writer, though it was the least favorite of the three novels that I have read by her. It is narrated by an unnamed woman whose father was of Chinese/Panamanian descent, while her mother was German. It is divided into three sections, the first focuses on her father, the second on her mother, and the third on a relationship with a rough Russian immigrant.
Not a tremendous amount of compelling narrative material is written here--in fact it often reads more as a memoir. Her father is very aloof and her mother domineering. Both of her parents are rather unhappy, and there is a constant struggle to successfully relate to either. When she becomes an independent adult, she is very promiscuous and eventually falls into a troubled affair with a married Russian immigrant who attends an English language class that she is teaching. He can be rather brutal and abusive, though he never is with her.
The narrator develops an aversion to the institution of marriage, probably because of what she saw in her parents' relationship. She develops meaningful friendships, but declares that she will never marry. The novel depicts the struggle of the immigrant in America--very timely today though it was written in 1995. She represents America's melting pot, though she still feels that she doesn't really fit in. Much of this novel deals with her desire to find her identity.
I loved Sigrid Nunez's The Last of Her Kind and The Friend far more than this one, though it still was a very impressive and compelling read.
Not a tremendous amount of compelling narrative material is written here--in fact it often reads more as a memoir. Her father is very aloof and her mother domineering. Both of her parents are rather unhappy, and there is a constant struggle to successfully relate to either. When she becomes an independent adult, she is very promiscuous and eventually falls into a troubled affair with a married Russian immigrant who attends an English language class that she is teaching. He can be rather brutal and abusive, though he never is with her.
The narrator develops an aversion to the institution of marriage, probably because of what she saw in her parents' relationship. She develops meaningful friendships, but declares that she will never marry. The novel depicts the struggle of the immigrant in America--very timely today though it was written in 1995. She represents America's melting pot, though she still feels that she doesn't really fit in. Much of this novel deals with her desire to find her identity.
I loved Sigrid Nunez's The Last of Her Kind and The Friend far more than this one, though it still was a very impressive and compelling read.
February 29, 2024
Stunning.
February 16, 2021
I don’t really know what to think of this novel.
It was dark, surprising, unsentimental, disjointed. It felt— real.
The only other S Nunez book I’ve read is The Friend; A Feather on the Breath of God was Very different. Style, themes, tone, prose (The Friend was written nearly 25 years later- what did I expect!). I liked The Friend much more.
There was a lot going on in this novel, but also not a lot?
I can see this book REALLY resonating with some, and REALLY missing the mark with others.
I think that this will be a story that sticks with me for reasons unknown. It was weird, I guess.
It was dark, surprising, unsentimental, disjointed. It felt— real.
The only other S Nunez book I’ve read is The Friend; A Feather on the Breath of God was Very different. Style, themes, tone, prose (The Friend was written nearly 25 years later- what did I expect!). I liked The Friend much more.
There was a lot going on in this novel, but also not a lot?
I can see this book REALLY resonating with some, and REALLY missing the mark with others.
I think that this will be a story that sticks with me for reasons unknown. It was weird, I guess.
February 28, 2023
I don't know what to say. Super smooth. Quietly funny. Darkly true. Nunez is underrated (regardless of her National Book Award win) and underread, and this, especially given it's her debut, feels like a wonderful testament to the messiness of "Americanness" and the ways in which the self remains unknowable yet our relationships with others might prove to be a key to further self-knowledge.
April 28, 2023
göçmenlik, aidiyet, aile olmak/olamamak, çocukluk ve kadınlık temalarının etrafında dönen anlatısıyla beni derinden etkiledi. parçalı, iç seslere sıkça yer veren yapısı da söz konusu temalara çok uygundu. bu sene favorilerimden oldu. fatih yiğitler'in çevirisini de çok başarılı buldum.
November 15, 2025
4.25 stars!!! Definitely an unsung masterpiece of coming of age fiction
August 2, 2021
“A Feather On The Breath Of God” is a relatively short -but utterly compelling and thought provoking read, all about the tumultuous relationships between parents and children. Exploring themes of heritage, displacement, language and identity.
We follow a relatively young -unnamed woman, as she looks back to the world of her immigrant parents: a withdrawn, Chinese-Panamanian father and a homesick, rather eccentric German mother. Who met and married in postwar Germany, before finally emigrating and settling in 1950’s New York City. Whilst growing up in a cramped housing project with her mum, dad and younger sister, our narrator would often escape the humdrum of family life, into dreams and aspirations -inspired by her parents tales of their past, the art and literature she was exposed too, and -for a short while, escaping into the otherworldly life of ballet.
Honestly, Nunez writing blows my mind every god damn time! She has this masterful way of using simple -yet unpretentious, language and structure, that perfectly manages to conjure such strong and evocative emotions and astute observations.
Made up of four parts, it is only until you come to the end, that you see how beautifully everything falls into place -not fully resolved, but it is undeniably a perfect exploration of someone attempting to find and piece together a sense of self, through both experiences and expressionism.
4 stars
Shout out to the one and only Chloe -who certainly knows me so well and for giving me this book!
We follow a relatively young -unnamed woman, as she looks back to the world of her immigrant parents: a withdrawn, Chinese-Panamanian father and a homesick, rather eccentric German mother. Who met and married in postwar Germany, before finally emigrating and settling in 1950’s New York City. Whilst growing up in a cramped housing project with her mum, dad and younger sister, our narrator would often escape the humdrum of family life, into dreams and aspirations -inspired by her parents tales of their past, the art and literature she was exposed too, and -for a short while, escaping into the otherworldly life of ballet.
Honestly, Nunez writing blows my mind every god damn time! She has this masterful way of using simple -yet unpretentious, language and structure, that perfectly manages to conjure such strong and evocative emotions and astute observations.
Made up of four parts, it is only until you come to the end, that you see how beautifully everything falls into place -not fully resolved, but it is undeniably a perfect exploration of someone attempting to find and piece together a sense of self, through both experiences and expressionism.
4 stars
Shout out to the one and only Chloe -who certainly knows me so well and for giving me this book!
September 13, 2008
My favorite of Sigrid's books!
(I can call Sigrid by her first name because I took a class with her ten years ago at Smith College and plan to keep bragging about it for the rest of my life.)
She has this non-linear, mostly plotless style that takes some getting used to, but her punctuation is amazing (seriously! it inspires me!) and her prose is just so lovely.
(I can call Sigrid by her first name because I took a class with her ten years ago at Smith College and plan to keep bragging about it for the rest of my life.)
She has this non-linear, mostly plotless style that takes some getting used to, but her punctuation is amazing (seriously! it inspires me!) and her prose is just so lovely.
January 5, 2022
Delicate and unpretentious in its writing, yet transparent and personal in its storytelling, Nunez composes four powerfully intimate and vivid character studies, each tracing back to the experiences of the main protagonist. I resonated deeply with this one, and found her words at times illuminating fragments of my own life — tumultuous parental relationships, the complexities of self-identity in a mixed culture family, the experience of displacement as a second generation immigrant, a yearning for independence, to "make it," to understand your mother tongue(s), to be less afraid. I only wish to be half as insightful and observant about people the way Nunez is in this book.
October 8, 2023
My first book from Nunez where I get acquainted her writing style as sincerely clear and authentic.
The story looks like an autofiction as far as I understand from the google search about the author. Unnamed narrator’s story is composed of 4 chapters; first her Chinese-panamanian father, after her German mother, then herself as ballet dancer and finally her love affair with a russian immigrant. In all chapters we experience the psychology of being an immigrant in different caracters. After recognising the parents in first 2 chapters we see how their reflections construct the narrotor’s life and affect her choices. Mother’s hardworking dominant caracter and strict disipline to survive with limited sources give shape to narrator’s passion in ballet dancing. By this way she legitimises her eating disorders (to be light as ‘a feather on the breath of god’) and pleassures taken through pain (to exercise until the body reacts to the duty fulfilled). We see the effect of non-enlish speaker and emotionally distant father on her love affair with married and criminal russian immigrant. By teaching him English, she, in a way, educates her father and builds a connection with him. Maybe that's why she struggles to end up this volatile (but very healing) relationship with this ‘wild’ man despite her friends’ protests.
I really liked reading this novel. She has an entertaining and funny way to tell the events and quite successful to keep herself outside of the emotional situation and be objective about the other people. Maybe thats why she doesn’t have a name although we know the father as Chang, the mother as Christa and the lover as Vadim. I definitely recommend to everybody (but especially immigrant women or the ones whose parents are immigrants) to read it.
The story looks like an autofiction as far as I understand from the google search about the author. Unnamed narrator’s story is composed of 4 chapters; first her Chinese-panamanian father, after her German mother, then herself as ballet dancer and finally her love affair with a russian immigrant. In all chapters we experience the psychology of being an immigrant in different caracters. After recognising the parents in first 2 chapters we see how their reflections construct the narrotor’s life and affect her choices. Mother’s hardworking dominant caracter and strict disipline to survive with limited sources give shape to narrator’s passion in ballet dancing. By this way she legitimises her eating disorders (to be light as ‘a feather on the breath of god’) and pleassures taken through pain (to exercise until the body reacts to the duty fulfilled). We see the effect of non-enlish speaker and emotionally distant father on her love affair with married and criminal russian immigrant. By teaching him English, she, in a way, educates her father and builds a connection with him. Maybe that's why she struggles to end up this volatile (but very healing) relationship with this ‘wild’ man despite her friends’ protests.
I really liked reading this novel. She has an entertaining and funny way to tell the events and quite successful to keep herself outside of the emotional situation and be objective about the other people. Maybe thats why she doesn’t have a name although we know the father as Chang, the mother as Christa and the lover as Vadim. I definitely recommend to everybody (but especially immigrant women or the ones whose parents are immigrants) to read it.
September 6, 2022
Dies ist der autobiographische Debütroman von Sigrid Nunez, welcher bereits 1995 erschien und nun neu übersetzt und aufgelegt wurde.
Nunez erzählt uns darin von ihrem Vater, einem Mann, mit Wurzeln in Panama und China, der nach dem Krieg in Deutschland stationiert war und dort ihre Mutter kennenlernte. Ein Vater der immer irgendwie unbeholfen im Umagng mit seiner Familie war und dessen Beziehung zur Mutter nie wirklich in der Balance war. Die Mutter dagegen eine resolute Frau, die damit beschäftigt war, die Familie zu managen und mit ihrem Heimweh nach Deutschland zurechtzukommen. Ein ungleiches Paar, welches sich mit den Gegebenheiten arrangierte, statt die Dinge zu ändern und dadurch vielleicht zu verbessern und so eine Tochter großzog, die nie heiraten wollte, da sie von Zuhause nur ein unharmonisches Eheleben kannte.
Sigrid Nunez erzählt uns von ihrem Aufwachsen im Sozialbau in New York City, von ihrer Hassliebe gegenüber dem Ballett, welches sie Disziplin, aber auch ein komplett verschrobenes Körperbild lehrte, und von einer Liebe, die von Beginn an zum Scheitern verurteilt war.
Man spürt dabei die alten Wunden und Traumata, die vielleicht nie richtig aufgearbeitet werden konnten, da zum Beispiel der Vater verstarb, obwohl es noch so viel zu besprechen gab. Aber man liest auch mit jeder Zeile, was die Autorin formte und zu der Person machte, die sie ist.
Ein interessantes Buch, über ein Leben, das mir selbst so fremd ist, da ich ganz anders aufgewachsen bin und auch heute noch lebe.
Nunez erzählt uns darin von ihrem Vater, einem Mann, mit Wurzeln in Panama und China, der nach dem Krieg in Deutschland stationiert war und dort ihre Mutter kennenlernte. Ein Vater der immer irgendwie unbeholfen im Umagng mit seiner Familie war und dessen Beziehung zur Mutter nie wirklich in der Balance war. Die Mutter dagegen eine resolute Frau, die damit beschäftigt war, die Familie zu managen und mit ihrem Heimweh nach Deutschland zurechtzukommen. Ein ungleiches Paar, welches sich mit den Gegebenheiten arrangierte, statt die Dinge zu ändern und dadurch vielleicht zu verbessern und so eine Tochter großzog, die nie heiraten wollte, da sie von Zuhause nur ein unharmonisches Eheleben kannte.
Sigrid Nunez erzählt uns von ihrem Aufwachsen im Sozialbau in New York City, von ihrer Hassliebe gegenüber dem Ballett, welches sie Disziplin, aber auch ein komplett verschrobenes Körperbild lehrte, und von einer Liebe, die von Beginn an zum Scheitern verurteilt war.
Man spürt dabei die alten Wunden und Traumata, die vielleicht nie richtig aufgearbeitet werden konnten, da zum Beispiel der Vater verstarb, obwohl es noch so viel zu besprechen gab. Aber man liest auch mit jeder Zeile, was die Autorin formte und zu der Person machte, die sie ist.
Ein interessantes Buch, über ein Leben, das mir selbst so fremd ist, da ich ganz anders aufgewachsen bin und auch heute noch lebe.
December 3, 2020
Nunez has a way with words that can illicit strong emotions within the readers.
October 18, 2012
This is a beautifully written book. It focuses on the experiences of a daughter of immigrants and the various sections of the book illuminate the experiences of a biracial woman with indepth portraits of her parents, who nonetheless remain a mystery to her. I loved this author's book The Last of Her Kind.
May 19, 2024
Highlights: Existentialism, displaced identity, deep character sketches, potpourri of cultural heritage
It is a fictional memoir in 4 parts of an immigrant family in America with mixed cultural roots. Reads like a smoothly blended non-fiction.
Part 1 - Chang (about the recluse Chinese-Panamanian father)
Part 2 - Christa (life snippets before marriage of the German mother, narrated in first person by her mother)
Part 3 - A Feather on the Breath of God (about ballet - the cover image with the cover title)
Part 4 - Immigrant Love (on the protagonist's illicit affair with one of her Russian students)
The meticulous German mother, and the reckless Chinese father - it’s a wonder how they came about together! Having lost the love of her life at an early age, she just surrendered that aspect of her life without any compassion!
Quite a few literary references:
The good earth by Pearl S Buck
Fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm
Gone With the Wind
The Diary of Anne Frank
Lolita (“So, is it dirty?” “No, just a very silly book by a very clever man.”)
TS Eliot, Tennyson, Virginia Woolfe, Faust, Shakespeare
Film references:
A Place in the Sun, Cleopatra, Triumph of the Will
Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe.
The references keep popping up naturally with the narration.
You get glimpses of war time Germany, along with insights on few Chinese cultural practices: The Chinese water torture, foot binding etc.
The last part was my personal favorite - about the protagonist's illicit affair with Vadim, a Russian immigrant. Vadim, a taxi driver, becomes an English class student of the unnamed protagonist lady. Her mixed ethnicity and parental conflicts contribute to a serious identity crisis, leaving her uncertain about who she truly is.
The parents took pride in their respective Chinese and German heritage, while the kids were devoid of any pride or sense of belonging.
This is the part which highlights the agony of being a mixed race with confused ethnicity!
Overall:
Immersive writing style. Loved re-reading bits and pieces from each part of the book.
Quotes I loved:
A European housewife could feed her family on what an American housewife throws away.
Human beings are capable of passions that human experience can never live up to.
Pain was good; pain was promising. Pain meant that you were working hard, doing things right; it was when you didn’t feel pain that you had to start worrying.
I have sometimes thought that I am less afraid of failure than other people because I know it is inevitable.
Slapstick comedy:
Whenever he didn’t catch something that was said to him (and this happened all the time), instead of saying “What?” he said “Who?” “Who? Who?” she screeched back at him. “What are you, an owl?”
"Now and then he brought home food from Chinatown: fiery red sausage with specks of fat like embedded teeth, dried fish, buns filled with bean paste that he cracked us up by calling Chinese pee-nus butter."
“You see: He has more to say to that bird than to us!” The emperor and his nightingale!
It is a fictional memoir in 4 parts of an immigrant family in America with mixed cultural roots. Reads like a smoothly blended non-fiction.
Part 1 - Chang (about the recluse Chinese-Panamanian father)
Part 2 - Christa (life snippets before marriage of the German mother, narrated in first person by her mother)
Part 3 - A Feather on the Breath of God (about ballet - the cover image with the cover title)
Part 4 - Immigrant Love (on the protagonist's illicit affair with one of her Russian students)
The meticulous German mother, and the reckless Chinese father - it’s a wonder how they came about together! Having lost the love of her life at an early age, she just surrendered that aspect of her life without any compassion!
Quite a few literary references:
The good earth by Pearl S Buck
Fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm
Gone With the Wind
The Diary of Anne Frank
Lolita (“So, is it dirty?” “No, just a very silly book by a very clever man.”)
TS Eliot, Tennyson, Virginia Woolfe, Faust, Shakespeare
Film references:
A Place in the Sun, Cleopatra, Triumph of the Will
Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe.
The references keep popping up naturally with the narration.
You get glimpses of war time Germany, along with insights on few Chinese cultural practices: The Chinese water torture, foot binding etc.
The last part was my personal favorite - about the protagonist's illicit affair with Vadim, a Russian immigrant. Vadim, a taxi driver, becomes an English class student of the unnamed protagonist lady. Her mixed ethnicity and parental conflicts contribute to a serious identity crisis, leaving her uncertain about who she truly is.
The parents took pride in their respective Chinese and German heritage, while the kids were devoid of any pride or sense of belonging.
This is the part which highlights the agony of being a mixed race with confused ethnicity!
Overall:
Immersive writing style. Loved re-reading bits and pieces from each part of the book.
Quotes I loved:
A European housewife could feed her family on what an American housewife throws away.
Human beings are capable of passions that human experience can never live up to.
Pain was good; pain was promising. Pain meant that you were working hard, doing things right; it was when you didn’t feel pain that you had to start worrying.
I have sometimes thought that I am less afraid of failure than other people because I know it is inevitable.
Slapstick comedy:
Whenever he didn’t catch something that was said to him (and this happened all the time), instead of saying “What?” he said “Who?” “Who? Who?” she screeched back at him. “What are you, an owl?”
"Now and then he brought home food from Chinatown: fiery red sausage with specks of fat like embedded teeth, dried fish, buns filled with bean paste that he cracked us up by calling Chinese pee-nus butter."
“You see: He has more to say to that bird than to us!” The emperor and his nightingale!
August 13, 2022
3,5 Sterne
January 14, 2025
Started of really strong but fell a little flat towards the middle/end
May 30, 2023
this might be a perfect book
December 21, 2025
Disturbed by how long it took me to read this, though it was gorgeous
Some gross sexual and gender dynamics that I felt could have been explored more
But sigrid knows how to write most beautiful sentences of all time
What book should I linger over for months to come next?
Some gross sexual and gender dynamics that I felt could have been explored more
But sigrid knows how to write most beautiful sentences of all time
What book should I linger over for months to come next?
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