The Sorrows of an American: A Novel [Hardcover]

Siri Hustvedt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2008

The Sorrows of an American is a soaring feat of storytelling about the immigrant experience and the ghosts that haunt families from one generation to another

When Erik Davidsen and his sister, Inga, find a disturbing note from an unknown woman among their dead father’s papers, they believe he may be implicated in a mysterious death. The Sorrows of an American tells the story of the Davidsen family as brother and sister uncover its secrets and unbandage its wounds in the year following their father’s funeral.

Returning to New York from Minnesota, the grieving siblings continue to pursue the mystery behind the note. While Erik’s fascination with his new tenants and emotional vulnerability to his psychiatric patients threaten to overwhelm him, Inga is confronted by a hostile journalist who seems to know a secret connected to her dead husband, a famous novelist. As each new mystery unfolds, Erik begins to inhabit his emotionally hidden father’s history and to glimpse how his impoverished childhood, the Depression, and the war shaped his relationship with his children, while Inga must confront the reality of her husband’s double life.

A novel about fathers and children, listening and deafness, recognition and blindness; the pain of speaking and the pain of keeping silent, the ambiguities of memory, loneliness, illness, and recovery. Siri Hustvedt’s exquisitely moving prose reveals one family’s hidden sorrows through an extraordinary mosaic of secrets and stories that reflect the fragmented nature of identity itself.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In her fourth novel (following the acclaimed What I Loved), Hustvedt continues, with grace and aplomb, her exploration of family connectedness, loss, grief and art. Narrator and New York psychoanalyst Erik Davidsen returns to his Minnesota hometown to sort through his recently deceased father Lars's papers. Erik's writer sister, Inga, soon discovers a letter from someone named Lisa that hints at a death that their father was involved in. Over the course of the book, the siblings track down people who might be able to provide information on the letter writer's identity. The two also contend with other looming ghosts. Erik immerses himself in the text of his father's diary as he develops an infatuation with Miranda, a Jamaican artist who lives downstairs with her daughter. Meanwhile, Inga, herself recently widowed, is reeling from potentially damaging secrets being revealed about the personal life of her dead husband, a well-known novelist and screenplay writer. Hustvedt gives great breaths of authenticity to Erik's counseling practice, life in Minnesota and Miranda's Jamaican heritage, and the anticlimax she creates is calming and justified; there's a terrific real-world twist revealed in the acknowledgments. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The New Yorker

"I’m lost," a patient tells her psychiatrist in Hustvedt’s fourth novel. "I’m cold. I’m all alone." She might be speaking for all the characters in this sombre meditation on the isolation of urban professionals, in which daily routines are nothing but "pillars in an architecture of need," erotic love is ephemeral, and friendship is the only source of consolation in a post-9/11 New York where everyone is always having nightmares. Hustvedt’s interest in the ways in which language can form both a bridge and a barrier between individuals leads her into digressions on Plato, Kierkegaard, and theories of psychoanalysis. This didactic turn has the unfortunate effect of making her plot—stories of loss and disappointment connected only tenuously through the character of the psychiatrist—start to seem almost beside the point.
Copyright ©2008Click here to subscribe to The New Yorker

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.; First Edition edition (April 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805079084
• ISBN-13: 978-0805079081
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,062,187 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Siri Hustvedt is the author of four novels, The Sorrows of an American, What I Loved, The Blindfold, and The Enchantment of Lily Dahl, as well as two collections of essays, A Plea for Eros and Mysteries of the Rectangle. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, Paul Auster.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Par Excellent, April 13, 2008

By 

Martin Nouvell (Oakland, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sorrows of an American: A Novel (Hardcover)

I had never heard of this author until I heard her speak at the Key West Literary Seminar last then. Since then I have bought and read all of her books.


How can she do what she does on a page? How does she make the pages fall away and take me into a world that I never forget? I don't know the answer, but I do know as soon as I saw she had a new book out, The Sorrows Of An American I rushed right out to buy it -- and in the last two days have been transported, once again by a world I did not know I was missing.

Like her previous books, the characters (Erick, Miranda, Eggy, and Inga, and Max) in Sorrows of an American are now a part of my life. I shut the book last night and am still thinking of their world. Missing it, actually.

While following a mystery - edged with both agitated grief -- I learned about memory, light, darkness, and art.

No question about it -- this book will not disappoint you: the kind of reading experience that makes you re-remember the power that can be found in bound pages when created by a true artist. Plus, the story here is simply - INTERESTING.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not her best - but a good read, May 5, 2008

By 

Mike Donovan (Middle America) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Sorrows of an American: A Novel (Hardcover)

In a day when smart, thoughtful fiction seems few and far between, I have been impressed with the thoughtful work of Siri Hustvedt. However, her latest book, 'The Sorrows of an American' was a bit too labyrinthian for me. While still finding much to like about the book, I was too often trying to place who was who, what was reality and what was a dream, etc. and it all interrupted the fluidity of the novel, for me at least. While usually enjoying free-flowing novels of uncertain trajectory (I'm a fan of her husband's work), I felt frustrated with 'Sorrows of an American.' Maybe it was my own mind, in a state of being pulled in one direction and then another due to some complexities in my own personal life that didn't allow me to appreciate this as much as her last work, 'What I Loved.' I will definitely revisit this book when my own mind is cleared of cobwebs and give it another try. Too many good reviews from critics I respect that fly in the face of my initial thoughts as I worked my way through this book. At any rate, with Auster and Hustvedt writing under the same roof, there's some seriously strong work being turned out that deserves much praise at a time when there's such a dearth of intelligent fiction.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars You either love it, or hate it, May 4, 2009

By 

C. Clark (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Sorrows of an American: A Novel (Paperback)

Disappointing. I kept thinking to myself, How does a book like this even get published? I am an avid reader, and am not accustomed to disliking a book as much as I disliked this book.

First, Hustvedt fails to draw a believable male protagonist. The dialogue is also unbelievable, as it is convoluted and awkward. The characters in this book do not speak as real people do. Also, the plot is shaky-to-nonexistent. Most of the characters aren't particularly likable; they are over-privileged, self-involved, and depressing. I couldn't wait for this book to be over with. It was slow going without reward.

I wonder if the author writes essays. Her writing style seems better suited to that medium.

Based on other reviews here, it seems you either love this book, or hate it. If you have any doubts, think twice. You may just hate it.