The late-life magic of novelist Sigrid Nunez: ‘My books weren’t getting the attention they deserved’

She is the retired teacher whose much-anticipated new novel, ‘The Vulnerables’, has all the hallmarks of Bonnie Garmus’s ‘Lessons in Chemistry’. Counting Natalie Portman and Laura Marling as fans and with an eager global readership, she tells Nick Duerden how it feels to become a smash hit in her sixties

Sigrid Nunez: ‘Look, like other writers, I make things up!’ (Patrick McMullan/Getty)

The way Sigrid Nunez tells it, she simply got lucky. The fact that the 72-year-old is about to publish her latest novel – The Vulnerables, a charming tale about an older woman, a university student and a raucous macaw – to a global readership eager to devour it is down to nothing more than a bit of luck.

“Well”, she says quietly, firmly, “it is.”

Her good fortune was set in place four years ago. Then 67, she had just completed another novel, her seventh. But something unusual was to happen to this one. Where previous books had been warmly reviewed before disappearing quietly from the shelves, this one would become an award-winning, bestselling smash hit. The Friend was a beguiling exercise in autofiction that existed within the same ballpark as, say, Rachel Cusk and Deborah Levy, but with softer edges and more warmth. It revolved around a woman, in many ways resembling Nunez herself, who takes ownership of her late friend’s 180lb Great Dane, moving it into her small Manhattan apartment and attempting to manage accordingly.