The Sorrows of an American

by Stray Taoist

This is, from memory, Siri Hustvedt's fourth novel. In case you are unaware, she is married to possibly the best living American novelist, Paul Auster. (His new novel comes out soon, and I will review it when it does.) Bizarrely, I picked this up while waiting/avoiding shopping in Tesco. For three of those Great British Pounds. Quite the bargain. More so, when you realise how much I loved her other novels, my favourite being 'What I Loved'.

The first thing that strikes you is the pain in the prose. She writes such starkly beautiful language, you feel all the emotions enjoyed, but mostly otherwise, by her characters. So intimate is the writing that you forget it is a book, and you are being told the trials by a close friend.

A book about families, relationships, secrets and history. A book of depression, redemption, watchful friends and buried trauma. While not unremittingly bleak, you can feel the weight of emotions on the page. Hardly a beach novel, but certainly an intelligent sweep through a lifetime or two.

Her other impressive feat, aside from the believabilty of her characters, is how well she writes males. Sometimes one gender writing the other tends to exaggerate, denegrate, and just make them cardboard charicatures. Ms Hustvedt has always written males well. So much so, given the narrator of this book is male, you couldn't tell it wasn't written by a man. The insights fit exactly with the male psyche, the tone, the voice, the outlook. A really amazing feat, as there aren't any other female novelists I know who write men as well. I can't think of any man who would be comparable in writing females in the way she casts her men.

The major arc of the book, the secret that underpins the story, seems to not be as dramatic as you might imagine, but I think that is part of the excellence of the book. We all have secrets, all families do, and some are built up over time, hidden and meaning more to some than others. There are comedic sequences, so this isn't just 'Requiem for a Dream' without the drugs, so a real slice of life.

If you see this in Tesco for three quid, I do suggest you pick it up. A novel of life and lives, masterfully told and carrying great weight. A wise and majestic novel, one I feel better for reading. I just wonder how long it takes before Auster becomes knows as 'husband of Siri'. Her works are of equal to those of his, and I can't give more praise than that.