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Siri Hustvedt '77 to read from new novel Friday

By David Gonnerman '90
April 21, 2008

Siri Hustvedt '77 will read from and sign her new book, The Sorrows of An American, at St. Olaf College Friday, April 25, at 4 p.m. in Buntrock Commons, Viking Theater.

HustvedtSiri77
Hustvedt
The narrator of Hustvedt's fourth novel, a New York psychoanalyst, returns to Minnesota to sort through his recently deceased father's papers. The story grows to look at the immigrant experience and the "ghosts" that can haunt families for generations. A Publishers Weekly starred review notes that the book continues "with grace and aplomb, [Hustvedt's] exploration of family connectedness, loss, grief and art." (The book also has been reviewed in the Star Tribune.)

Hustvedt explained in a recent Bookseller magazine interview that her latest work was prompted by the death of her father, longtime St. Olaf faculty member Lloyd Hustvedt '49. "I was thinking about the book before he died, when it was very clear to me that I was losing him," she said. "That was when I asked him if I could use some parts of the memoir he had written for family and friends in my novel, and he said yes." The novel includes real passages from her father?s memoirs, including the killing of a Japanese officer during World War II that her father witnessed.

"I think the years of writing the book were in some way an attempt to deal with the grief I felt after my father died. Those feelings do not end ... but I do think they go through changes," she said.

Other books by Hustvedt include What I Loved, Blindfold, The Enchantment of Lily Dahl, Donata and a number of essay collections. The Sorrows of An American is available from the St. Olaf Bookstore now through the event at a 15 percent discount.

Contact Ruth Block at 507-786-3048 or block@stolaf.edu.