Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Siri, welcome to Waterstones, first of all.
Thank you for having me.
It is really great to have a chance to speak to you about this book, Ghost Stories, which is an incredible read, a sort of patchwork of a book made up of lots of different elements. To start off with, if it's okay, I wondered whether you would be happy to sort of share the story of meeting Paul for the first time, because it's such a lovely part of the book.
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.
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Chapter 2: How did Siri Hustvedt and Paul Auster first meet?
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.
Really?
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. But anyway, late in the evening, we were sitting across from each other And I looked at his face and I thought, yep, I've talked some interest into this man. And I took him home that night. So it was a big first meeting.
It was an immediate connection, wasn't it? Yes.
Well, as I say, the joke and, you know, the private marital joke was that I was in love in 30 seconds and it took him several hours.
He got there in the end.
He did. He did.
Do you mind talking about because quite soon after you, I suppose, got together, you sort of thought you'd lost him. There's a very, very traumatic episode of part of the book where he out of nowhere leaves, leaves you and goes back to his ex-wife.
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Chapter 3: What challenges did Siri face early in her relationship with Paul?
And then it will not grow back in the same way. That's why the organic model is superior. You see, that was it. So then I started thinking about this lightning and the tree. And I had this memory of seeing it in Minnesota, a tree with soot, you know, cleaved tree. And I thought, well, Siri, is this your fantasy now? Or look it up. So I looked up trees and there it was.
this tree split in half one half dead and the other half alive and then i thought is that what you hope that you know you're gonna bloom again and um what happens in grief you know what i've it's been two years since paul died and i've been thinking well you know it's not better i mean i take him back in a second you know but what happens to the embodied being is that
you become more adapted to the absence. And I mentioned something that, I mean, I was kind of crazy after he died. And I had what I call cognitive splintering, which is like, my memory was all screwed up. I had to, I felt I had to nail myself down. Well, that is much better, fortunately.
You mentioned as well in the writing of the book that obviously what you were trying to do through the writing was to bring him back in some way, shape or form. But also in the book we do have his writing back again because of these incredible letters that he's writing to his grandson for him to read in the future. And one of my favourites of those letters was the one where he was talking about
Well, you as Momo, as this idea of the grandmothers and the family known as Momo. Could you explain a little bit about what that word actually means, where it comes from?
So the word is Norwegian and it is mother's mother. And so I became Momo. Sophie is his mother, my daughter, our daughter. And therefore, there's a line of momos that Paul wanted to explain to Miles. That's why he calls me Momo.
It's so beautiful because he talks about a chain of love that exists, sort of passed down from one generation to the next. It's so clear that he was almost keeping himself alive because he wanted to see Miles being bored, didn't he? There's a beautiful picture of him looking over the crib at little baby Miles.
But that idea of, I suppose, him living on in those words, in that picture, in the idea of Miles.
Yes, and also I think... it doesn't really reproduce our dialogue but I did think of the marriage while I was living it as well as a long dialogue and so by imitating that in the book inserting Paul's actual written voice that made me happy because there's it creates a kind of rhythm of the two people And he was, you know, deeply attached to, you know, his daughter, his son-in-law.
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Chapter 4: What inspired Siri to write letters to Paul after he left?
And I said, darling, come across the patio. There was an outside place with a dipping pool. And Paul walked straight into the pool. And once we realized that he was OK, We laughed so hard. I think his former athleticism saved him because his head was still dry, but the rest of him was just soaking wet. I don't know. There are many things like that. I treasure them.
While I was writing the book, remembering some of those absurd truths, it made me laugh and made me happy.
It's a fantastic note on which to end, Ceri. I can't thank you enough for this book. It's a really beautiful thing and to have some time to talk to you about it in a bit more detail.
Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.
Did we do a clap at the beginning?
We did one, but let's do another one.
The end.
I remember you doing that. Oh, do you?
Oh, I do.
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