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The Sorrows of an American
Siri Hustvedt
Henry Holt and Co.
April 2008
On Sale: April 1, 2008
Featuring: Erik Davidsen; Inga
320 pages
ISBN: 0805079084
EAN: 9780805079081
Hardcover
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Fiction
The Sorrows of an American is a soaring feat of
storytelling about the immigrant experience and the ghosts
that haunt families from one generation to another When Erik Davidsen and his sister, Inga, find a disturbing
note from an unknown woman among their dead father’s
papers, they believe he may be implicated in a mysterious
death. The Sorrows of an American tells the story of the
Davidsen family as brother and sister uncover its secrets
and unbandage its wounds in the year following their
father’s funeral. Returning to New York from Minnesota, the grieving siblings
continue to pursue the mystery behind the note. While
Erik’s fascination with his new tenants and emotional
vulnerability to his psychiatric patients threaten to
overwhelm him, Inga is confronted by a hostile journalist
who seems to know a secret connected to her dead husband, a
famous novelist. As each new mystery unfolds, Erik begins
to inhabit his emotionally hidden father’s history and to
glimpse how his impoverished childhood, the Depression, and
the war shaped his relationship with his children, while
Inga must confront the reality of her husband’s double life. A novel about fathers and children, listening and deafness,
recognition and blindness; the pain of speaking and the
pain of keeping silent, the ambiguities of memory,
loneliness, illness, and recovery. Siri Hustvedt’s
exquisitely moving prose reveals one family’s hidden
sorrows through an extraordinary mosaic of secrets and
stories that reflect the fragmented nature of identity
itself.
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