ON LOSS, MEMORY AND MANHOOD | July 30th 2008

Tall, thin, gorgeous women who live in elegant brownstones in literary bliss with their best-selling author husbands rarely warm the hearts of us folks here at More Intelligent Life. And yet Siri Hustvedt--author, intellectual, Brooklynite--has earned our regard. Her novels, most recently "The Sorrows of an American", possess an aching, insightful understanding of "the grim traps of over-active minds" (according to a review in The Economist). She brings a similar sincerity and wisdom to this audio interview, conducted with a Books and Arts correspondent of The Economist.

What becomes plain from listening is that Hustvedt has an endearing and often self-effacing way of laughing at herself. She has much to say about the impact of her father's death on the book, and what it is like to write from a male perspective ("I spent about ten and a half years as a man in my study"). But my favourite part may be a funny, self-conscious sigh she lets out, about eight minutes in; it is the delicate groan of someone who would rather be back in her study, dreaming up stories of budding love, fragmented memories and fraught relationships, instead of in the spotlight herself, indulging the questions of a curious houseguest. ~ EMILY BOBROW