Author Sigrid Nunez, who won the National Book Award for 2018's The Friend, joins Kate and Eric to talk about her new novel, What Are You Going Through, which focuses on the narrator's close relationship to a friend with a terminal illness. The work revolves around witnessing the lives and needs of others; intertwines with themes of friendship, mortality, bravery, and even transcendence, amidst the commonplace.  The conversation touches on how we contend with death in our society, and in relation to the pandemic. Nunez discusses contemporaries who have inspired her as they faced their mortality. Also, Joni Murphy, author of Talking Animals, returns to recommend Matthew Goulish's 39 Microlectures in Proximity of Performance.