Siri Hustvedt and saving the personal essay
Siri Hustvedt, Mothers, Fathers, and Others (Simon and Schuster, 304 pages) An essay by Honor Jones for The Atlantic went viral last month. It was entitled “How I demolished my life” and was a how-divorce-altered-me piece, something of a bildungsroman for the fortysomething woman. One paragraph in particular caused enormous offense on social media: How much of my life — I mean the architecture of my life, but also its essence, my soul, my mind — had I built around my husband? Who could I be if I wasn’t his wife? Maybe I would microdose. Maybe I would have sex with women. Maybe I would write a book. Many found the essay galling because it intellectualizes a decision that many married couples go through.
