About this episode

Siri Hustvedt discusses her experiences of love and grief following the death of her husband, Paul Auster, and reflects on her latest memoir, Ghost Stories.

My guest today is the acclaimed writer Siri Hustvedt. The author of seven novels (including my personal favourite What I Loved and the Booker longlisted The Blazing World), five essay collections, a poetry collection and a memoir, The Shaking Woman, or a history of my nerves. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages. She is also a lecturer in psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical college. Siri’s work has always explored the liminal space between mind, memory and heart but perhaps none more so than her latest memoir, Ghost Stories, a devastating (but also joyous) reflection on the 43 years she spent with her husband, writer Paul Auster, before his death in 2024. The ghost in question is him but its pages are haunted by the ghost of them. Siri joined me from her home in Brooklyn to talk about long love, losing your everyday, the grief that floored her and the way an enduring relationship moulds those who dwell in it. We also discussed why happiness is not a goal, how society fears death, learning not to feel guilty about being outspoken, writing to keep Paul and Siri alive, how grief made her creaky and how she misses the olfactory hallucinations that accompanied…

People in this episode

Host: Sam Baker

Guest: Siri Hustvedt

Topics covered

• grief
• love
• memory
• loss
• writing
• relationships

Keywords

• grief
• love
• Siri Hustvedt
• Paul Auster
• memoir
• relationships
• writing

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: What I Loved, The Blazing World, The Shaking Woman, or a history of my nerves, Ghost Stories

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