SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Paul Auster once told his wife and partner of 43 years, Siri Hustvedt, that he wanted to live on as a ghost. And he inhabits each page in just about every phrase and breath, ever haunting - there is no way around that word, memoir - "Ghost Stories," which recounts their lives in the loss of Paul. The great novelist died in 2024 at the age of 77, a little over a year after being diagnosed with cancer. Of course, Paul Auster wrote "The New York Trilogy," "The Music Of Chance," "The Book Of Illusions" and other acclaimed novels.
Siri Hustvedt is also the author of poetry, essays and seven novels, including "The Blazing World." She joins us from New York. Siri, thank you so much for being with us.
SIRI HUSTVEDT: Well, thank you for having me, Scott.
SIMON: I would like to ask you to read a section.
HUSTVEDT: OK.
SIMON: And it's eloquent but may be tough - if you are willing.
HUSTVEDT: I...
(Reading) On Sunday, May 19, I made the following note. Siri Hustvedt walks around the house and talks to herself. She asks a question and answers it. The woman who now conducts a dialogue alone is subject to intermittent collapse. Only seconds after she smiled over a witty remark she had made to herself, she looks at his chair in the dining room. The blue chair, where he ate breakfast every morning and ate dinner every night. The chair underneath which are scratches in the floorboards, because he sat heavily in that chair and sometimes moved it while he was sitting. The scratches that annoyed her before he died are now traces of his body's living weight after he died. She buckles over, and with her arms folded across her chest, she howls at the insensate walls, I want you back. I want you back.
SIMON: Thank you so much for reading that. You talk about something called cognitive splintering in the book.
HUSTVEDT: Yes.
SIMON: What was that like for you? What is it like for you?
HUSTVEDT: It was very clear to me that I would miss him terribly. And I knew I would grieve, but I really wasn't prepared for the interference with memory, how totally disoriented I was for quite a while. I did a lot of reading about grief, and there is sometimes an effect on a part of the brain called the hippocampus that is strongly associated with memory. And I have felt, in the two years now since Paul has been dead, that my memory has actually improved.
SIMON: You were two writers who read each other's work to each other as you worked.
HUSTVEDT: Yes.
SIMON: Did that always promote domestic tranquility?
HUSTVEDT: Well, I've thought about this a lot because, you know, the criticisms could be, from time to time, quite dramatic. Now, I think when criticism rests on a bed of mutual respect, it's much easier to take. So we didn't have a lot of hurt feelings or crying in the chairs where we read to each other. I think we both knew that the other was for the project entirely.
SIMON: The book's been called a kind of patchwork quilt, and it includes love letters, emails, meditations. I found myself especially moved by letters that Paul wrote to is - your grandson, Miles.
HUSTVEDT: Yes.
SIMON: What did you find in those letters that Miles was, and I guess maybe still is, too young to read?
HUSTVEDT: Oh, yes. He's just a little over 2. He is not literate yet. And Paul was writing to an imaginary young man, Miles, to tell Miles something about his family. And my impulse to put the 35 pages that Paul was able to finish of what he thought could be a small book into my book was also to preserve our family, but also the dialogue that Paul and I had for 43 years together.
SIMON: As you know, Siri, we have to ask about a great sadness - tragedy...
HUSTVEDT: Yes.
SIMON: ...In your life and Paul's. Your granddaughter Ruby died in 2021. A medical examiner determined she died of heroin and fentanyl.
HUSTVEDT: Yes.
SIMON: And your son, Daniel, was charged in connection with her death. And hours after being released on bail, he overdosed.
HUSTVEDT: Yes. It's a terrible story.
SIMON: You had to go through that in the glare of a lot of publicity, didn't you?
HUSTVEDT: These were horrible things. And when I wrote this book, I knew it would be deeply dishonest not to include that story because Paul loved his son. It was a deeply fraught and difficult relation. But nevertheless, I wanted to put it in the book without that story overwhelming the book.
SIMON: Wow. Among the many discoveries in this book, perhaps the least important - well, maybe not.
HUSTVEDT: (Laughter).
SIMON: I didn't know that Paul was once offered a chance to do a television ad for...
HUSTVEDT: (Laughter).
SIMON: ...American beef in Japan.
HUSTVEDT: I can't remember the exact sum, but it was a great deal of money, and we were not rich people. And so, you know, I thought, well, he'll never do it, which he didn't, of course. He never did that kind of thing. I think his integrity was too ferocious. He wasn't going to smile about American beef in Japan, even though most people in his own country wouldn't have seen it, of course.
SIMON: I was about to point that out. My gosh.
HUSTVEDT: (Laughter).
SIMON: What would the rest of us know?
HUSTVEDT: He could have done it incognito (laughter).
SIMON: As we noted, Paul said he wanted to live on as a ghost. Has he?
HUSTVEDT: He did for me. He told me that several times before he died. And on the day we buried Paul at a small funeral in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, there was a small after-burial event here at the house. And at one point, I just left and went upstairs into our bedroom, and I had a remarkable experience. I felt Paul's presence coming up the stairs and walking into the bedroom, looking at me to make sure I was all right. And I was filled with joy, and then he left. Now, presences, it turns out, are not unusual in grieving people. I was joyous. It was a great thing.
SIMON: Does it hold that the closer you are, the harder it is to be without?
HUSTVEDT: I think it's true. You know, if a human being has the capacity for love, that person is going to grieve. And the more powerful those feelings, the greater the intimacy, I think, the more profound the grief.
SIMON: Siri Hustvedt. Her new book - memoir - for 43 years with her husband, Paul Auster, is "Ghost Stories." Thank you so much for being with us.
HUSTVEDT: Oh, thank you, Scott. It was very nice. Thank you so much.
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