Siri Hustvedt for Ghost Stories: a Memoir

'It is Hustvedt's gift to write with exemplary clarity of what is by necessity unclear' - Hilary Mantel

'Hustvedt is that rare artist, a writer of high intelligence, profound sensuality and a less easily definable capacity for which the only word I can find is wisdom' - Salman Rushdie

Siri Hustvedt is one of the great writers of our time, and a favourite amongst our booksellers. Whether it be her novels, essays, or short-stories, she never fails to captivate. She joins us to celebrate Ghost Stories, a deeply tender memoir of the time Siri spent with her husband – writer, poet and filmmaker Paul Auster – from their first encounter in 80s New York to his recent death.

We are deeply honoured to be hosting Siri, and we hope to see you there.

"I began writing Ghost Stories shortly after my husband, Paul Auster, died on April 30th 2024. My meditations on Paul's cancer, his death, my grief, the potent feeling I had of his presence on the day he was buried, and my memories from the years we spent together are interwoven with several texts that were written before he died: twelve letters I wrote to friends during his cancer treatment; journal entries I wrote between early November, 2023 and May 3, 2024; and three love letters I wrote to Paul in 1981, when he left me for a period of nine or ten days to return to his former life. Although I knew Paul had saved those letters, I hadn't read them since they were written and had only a foggy recollection of their content.

In the last month of his life, Paul began writing what he hoped would be a small book of letters to our grandson, Miles Auster Hustvedt Ostrander, who was born on January 1st, 2024. Paul was too weak to finish it as planned, but the thirty-five pages he did manage to write are interwoven in this book.

I want to stress that Paul's text is not an appendix to mine but an integral part of the book as a whole. Because the memoir turns on attachment, betweenness, and dialogue, all crucial to the love affair that lasted forty-three years, the insertion of one author's text into another's, is, in this case, essential to the memoir's overall meaning."

- Siri Hustvedt

Siri Hustvedt is the author of seven novels, five collections of essays, a poetry collection and a memoir. Her books have been listed for major prizes, including the Booker Prize, the Women's Prize and the PEN America Literary Award. She holds a PhD from Columbia University and has been awarded honorary PhDs from Johannes Gutenberg University, Stendhal University and the University of Oslo. She is a Lecturer in Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College and has written on art for the New York Times and the Daily Telegraph. Born in Minnesota, she lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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