“A kaleidoscope of intellectual and emotional ideas, dancing with philosophical speculation, neuroscience, and an ongoing enquiry into the relationship between the self and creativity. Rather than drift into abstraction, these ideas are pinned to characters who are intriguingly flawed and damaged, and who, in trying to confront that damage, throw some light on the mystery of what makes us who we are.”

—Metro (UK)

THE SORROWS
OF AN AMERICAN

SIRI HUSTVEDT

A Novel

Picador
A FRANCES COADY BOOK
Henry Holt and Company
NEW YORK

Dedication

For my daughter,

Sophie Hustvedt Auster

Don’t turn away.

Keep looking at the bandaged place.

That’s where the light enters you.

—RUMI

THE SORROWS
OF AN AMERICAN

The Sorrows of an American

My sister called it “the year of secrets,” but when I look back on it now, I’ve come to understand that it was a time not of what was there, but of what wasn’t. A patient of mine once said, “There are ghosts walking around inside me, but they don’t always talk. Sometimes they have nothing to say.” Sarah squinted or kept her eyes closed most of the time because she was afraid the light would blind her. I think we all have ghosts inside us, and it’s better when they speak than when they don’t. After my father died, I couldn’t talk to him in person anymore, but I didn’t stop having conversations with him in my head. I didn’t stop seeing him in my dreams or stop hearing his words. And yet it was what my father hadn’t said that took over my life for a while—what he hadn’t told us. It turned out that he wasn’t the only person who had kept secrets. On January sixth, four days after his funeral, Inga and I came across the letter in his study.