On April 30, it will be two years since Paul Auster, who had been suffering from cancer, fell asleep at home in Brooklyn. Siri Hustvedt wrote and read instead of numbing herself with whiskey.
You have a job, I'm always writing, but structuring a book and thinking about form and rhythms was organizing myself.
She mourns not only her husband, but perhaps even more her husband and herself - this third person they were together, the person he made her become and want to be.
I've thought about this; it's a long-standing philosophical position of mine, she says.
Relationships
Simply put, it's about how relationships with others lead to action. Last fall, she lectured about her philosophical position when she accepted an award, but in "A Book of Ghosts - a Love Memoir" she talks about the "and-thing."
I thought, “Siri, this is great, this is an easy way for people to understand what you’re talking about.”
She wrote the book out of a physical need to fill "a gaping hole in my upper body."
All books must be fueled by an emotional need. I wanted him back so much, but we don't bring people back when they're dead; it's a hopeless thing.
Son's overdose
Siri Hustvedt also felt compelled to speak out about what hurt the most. Paul Auster died almost to the day two years after his son Daniel, from his first marriage, died of an overdose of heroin and fentanyl. Just days earlier, Daniel had been arrested on suspicion of causing the death of his ten-month-old daughter after drugs were found in her blood.
For Paul Auster, the death of his son and grandson was “the terrible thing” - Daniel partly grew up with them.
There was no way to write about Paul without writing about Daniel, says Siri Hustvedt.
It can never be anything but speculation, but I think the two terrible deaths were part of the cancer. Paul wanted to live, but parts of his immune system are deeply affected by stress - but again, that's speculation. He was a man who smoked for years. Mr. Cigar.
Grief has made her radically honest, Siri Hustvedt notes. Even white lies have become difficult.
Paul could be a very rude person, almost tactless at times. I've wondered if I've incorporated a part of him into me, that it's a way to cope in the future, to have a part of Paul with me.
Facts: Siri Hustvedt
Born: 1955, raised in Northfield, Minnesota. Her parents had roots in Norway and Hustvedt attended high school in Bergen for one year.
Lives: In Brooklyn, New York.
Family: Daughter Sophie Auster.
Books: Debuted with the poetry collection "Reading to You" in 1983. Had her big breakthrough with the novel "What I Loved" in 2003. Has also written about philosophy and neuroscience. Received The Principality Prize in philosophy in 2025.
Current: "A Book of Ghosts - a Love Memoir", in which she writes about her life with her husband, the author Paul Auster. His last texts, seven letters to his grandson Miles, are interspersed throughout the book. Auster wrote them before his death and had intended to write enough of them to publish them as a book in their own right.
Future plans: Has just resumed work on a political novel.
