Novels and essays by Siri Hustvedt are the cream of American intellectual literature. Hustvedt is famous and loved both in the States and around the world. The hero of «The Sorrows of an American», psychoanalyst Eric Davidsen, reads the diaries of his deceased father, trying to unravel family secrets and the logic of historical events, from the Great Depression and World War II to September 11th.
Novels and essays by Siri Hustvedt are the cream of American intellectual literature. Hustvedt is famous and loved both in the States and around the world. The hero of «The Sorrows of an American», psychoanalyst Eric Davidsen, reads the diaries of his deceased father, trying to unravel family secrets and the logic of historical events, from the Great Depression and World War II to September 11th. Eric slowly moves through dreams, his own and other people’s memories, falls in love with an artist neighbor from Jamaica, communicates with patients and all the time thinks about how our memory, brain, consciousness works. Most of all, the novel resembles an inspired psychoanalytic session, where Davidsen plays the patient and Hustvedt plays the doctor. This session is full of dramatic twists, surprises and sudden insights, never final, leading to a new turn.
ASTREL, CORPUS, 400 p.
Maya Kucherskaya