Siri Hustvedt's 'Ghost Stories' Memoir Chronicles Grief After Paul Auster's Death

Siri Hustvedt's new memoir 'Ghost Stories' recounts the first year after the death of her husband, author Paul Auster, who died of lung cancer in 2024. The book, published by Sceptre, blends Hustvedt's narrative with letters from the couple's early courtship and letters Auster wrote to his infant grandson Miles. Hustvedt began writing two weeks after Auster's burial on May 3, 2024, describing the process as a lifeline that provided coherence. The memoir explores themes of time, memory, and intercorporeality, drawing on bereavement literature and Hustvedt's own scholarship. She discusses a hallucinatory experience of Auster's presence on the day of his burial, which she links to his expressed desire to return as a ghost. The book also references Sabine Lidl's documentary 'Siri Hustvedt – Dance Around the Self,' which features Auster and was screened in Berlin. Hustvedt notes that writing allowed her moments of levity and reflection amid grief.