German-Panamanian-Chinese-American writer Sigrid Nunez’sseventh book The Friend (2018) is a hybrid narrative, a compositeof memoir, meditation, novel, fiction and metafiction, on human andnon-human animal companionship. It amalgamates issues that havebecome trademarks of Nunez’s fiction such as loss and grief with thecompanionship of non-human animals and humans. The book thematically blurs the boundaries between humans and non-human animalsand fundamentally challenges and questions Western ways of thinkingabout human-animal dualistic hierarchy, according to which animalsare associated with instincts rather than reason, with teh body ratherthan the mind, and with nature rather than culture. While the humanworld the novel presents is filled with vile gossip, competition, senseless brutality and bloodshed, the animals set an example of loyalty andfriendship; with their superior mental and bodily capacities, animals inThe Friend are portrayed, rather than dumb creatures, as wise kin ofhumans still persisting in goodness though wrongfully exiled from human privileges. Thus in her intricately knitted narrative, Nunez offersthe companionship of non-human animals as the only saving grace inhuman life.