Siri Hustvedt

Thank you for having me.

Yes, so...

It was four days after my 26th birthday.

I was living in New York.

I was a graduate student at Columbia.

And I went to a poetry reading to hear a poet, Anne Lauterbach, a poet I admire, still admire.

And I went with a friend.

After the reading, we left the 92nd Street Y, and right inside the exit, I see this absolutely beautiful man leaning against the wall, a little hunched over in a leather jacket with either a little cigar or a cigarette between his fingers.

I can't remember.

And I said to my friend,

do you you don't know who that is do you and he said yes that's Paul Auster the poet and I thought poet oh my god even better not only is he great to look at but he's a poet and I was writing poetry at the time and you know in graduate school and I said introduce us right now and he did and we all took a cab downtown to some literary party after

the reading, and I just stuck to him.

Basically, I just imposed myself on this very handsome man.

And we talked, and then we kept talking.

We went out.

It was into the night.

And I did have, certainly those first hours, I thought, this guy is just not interested in me.

I worked my butt off to impress him.

We talked a lot about books and I do not remember what books.

I think it must have been a lot of poetry.