The literary fame of the brilliant American Siri Hustvedt is growing rapidly. Her books have been translated into sixteen languages and published on several continents, and literary scholars closely follow her work. A novelist, poet, and influential essayist, Siri Hustvedt is also the wife and muse of another famous prose writer, Paul Auster. “The Sorrows of an American” is a captivating family novel, where Hustvedt masterfully explores the memory and subconscious of his characters, not without reason the main character, Eric Davidsen, psychiatrist profession. Returning from Minnesota to New York after his father's funeral, Eric and his sister Inga enter a strange period, which Inga calls "the year of secrets." Unexplained family secrets haunt them. They read their father's memoirs and meet people who knew him. At the same time, it is discovered that the past of Inga’s deceased husband, a cult writer, also has its dark spots... According to the writer, “The Sorrows of an American” is a largely autobiographical novel, it uses the memoirs of her father Lloyd Hustvedt and true facts from the history of three generations of her family .