Sigrid Nunez’s stories surprised even her

Sigrid Nunez’s new short story collection, It Will Come Back to You, has stirred quiet reflection among readers and critics alike. The collection, which marks Nunez’s first foray into short fiction, includes 13 stories spanning nearly three decades of her writing career. While Nunez has long been recognized for her novels, such as The Friend and The Vulnerables, this new work reveals a different facet of her creative process. In interviews, she has emphasized that none of the stories in the collection are autobiographical, despite the emotional depth and personal resonance many have found in her writing. The collection features stories drawn from different stages of Nunez’s career, beginning as early as 1992 and extending to 2025. Most of the pieces were originally published in the past 15 years, though several date back further. The diversity in timing reflects the evolution of her narrative style and thematic concerns. Notably, the final story in the collection was released in 2025, marking a culmination of her ongoing exploration of human connection and emotional complexity. The collection is structured as a retrospective, offering a glimpse into how Nunez has approached storytelling over the years. Nunez initially hesitated to compile her stories into a single volume. She had been asked repeatedly whether she might consider publishing a collection, including by her literary agent, but she consistently dismissed the idea. For much of her career, she focused on longer-form narratives, believing that short stories lacked the space to fully explore the themes she wished to convey. However, after completing her novel The Vulnerables, which chronicles the experiences of a writer navigating the challenges of the pandemic in New York City, she felt an unexpected surge of inspiration. This led to a series of interconnected stories that, according to Nunez, seemed to emerge almost effortlessly. In a video interview, Nunez described the process of writing the collection as both surprising and deeply satisfying. “I wrote a story, and then to my surprise, I had another story pushing right after it, and I wrote that, and then yet again there was another one,” she explained. “This was all pretty unusual, and somehow the stories had tapped into something. That’s why I could have the collection.” The ease with which these stories flowed suggests a shift in her creative mindset, perhaps influenced by the introspective nature of her recent novel. Nunez’s body of work includes a range of genres and formats. Among her notable works is Mitz: The Marmoset of Bloomsbury, which explores the life of Virginia Woolf’s pet marmoset, and Sempre Susan, a memoir detailing her time spent living with the late writer Susan Sontag. Her novel The Friend, which centers on a woman who inherits a large dog from her deceased colleague, received critical acclaim and was awarded the 2018 National Book Award for Fiction. It was also adapted into a film featuring Bill Murray. While Nunez has expressed admiration for the idea of compiling one’s entire body of work into a single volume, she clarified that this desire was not the driving force behind the creation of It Will Come Back to You. Instead, the collection emerged organically from her evolving artistic sensibilities. Her deep engagement with family dynamics, particularly mother-daughter relationships, is evident throughout the collection, with one story titled Mother-Daughter Story standing out as a poignant exploration of intergenerational bonds.