Siri Hustvedt, acclaimed author and widow of novelist Paul Auster, has published a memoir titled "Ghost Stories" that chronicles her life with and without her husband, as well as the profound grief she endured following his death. The memoir was born out of personal tragedy and loss, offering an intimate look at their 43-year partnership and the challenges the family faced in recent years.

Hustvedt was midway through a novel when Auster, her husband of more than four decades, passed away from lung cancer. She found it impossible to continue writing that story after his death. Instead, just two weeks later, she began a new book, opening with the stark sentences, “I am alive. My husband, Paul Auster, is dead.” The memoir explores her emotional disorientation and the deep psychological impact of losing her lifelong partner, describing vivid sensory memories such as the lingering smell of cigar smoke despite Auster having quit nine years earlier.

"Ghost Stories" serves not only as an account of grief but also as a portrait of a literary marriage marked by mutual support and creative interplay. Both renowned writers, Hustvedt and Auster often served as first readers and editors for each other’s work. Their relationship spanned joyful early days marked by inside jokes and joint dedication to their craft, through to years shaped by familial tragedy.

Hustvedt has opened up publicly in the memoir about the family’s ordeal after Auster’s son, Daniel, struggled with addiction. In 2021, Daniel’s infant daughter Ruby died from acute opioid intoxication while in his care. He was charged with criminally negligent homicide and later died from a drug overdose himself. Hustvedt writes about the toll these events took on the family and the media attention that followed, which compounded their suffering.

Paul Auster was diagnosed with cancer months after these traumatic events. Hustvedt recounts his struggle to reconcile the predictable nature of his illness with his identity as a storyteller. “He said so many times, it would make for a bad story,” she recalled. The couple lived for 30 years in a Brooklyn townhouse where Auster spent his final days surrounded by family and books.

Though both Hustvedt and Auster achieved literary acclaim, his prominence often overshadowed her work. Hustvedt has spoken candidly about the challenges of carving out her own identity as a writer independent from her husband’s reputation. Even after his death, she has encountered perceptions that frame her more as “Paul Auster’s wife” than as a distinguished author in her own right.

Friends and contemporaries, including Salman Rushdie, have praised "Ghost Stories" for its honest and tender portrayal of Auster, capturing a warmth and wit often absent from his public image. The memoir reveals the complexities of their life together, from youthful courtship to shared creative achievements and difficult family struggles.

Hustvedt’s memoir is both a personal and literary reckoning with loss. After completing it, she returned to the novel left unfinished by Auster’s death, acknowledging that though the story remains the same, she herself is forever changed. “I am starting from the beginning,” she said, “Not that the story is going be different. But I’m different.”