Author Laurie Hertzel revisits the ghosts of her Duluth childhood

What does it mean to grow up in a family haunted by a tragedy?

That’s one of the central themes in a new memoir by Laurie Hertzel, the former book review editor for the Minnesota Star Tribune.

In “Ghosts of Fourth Street: My Family, a Death, and the Hills of Duluth,” Hertzel writes about growing up in Duluth in the 1960s, the seventh child in a family of ten children.

Her father was a college English instructor with a quick temper. Her mother was often overwhelmed. And her family was changed forever when she was 9, after the sudden death of her 18-year-old brother.

MPR News host Angela Davis talks with Laurie Hertzel about how we’re shaped by our family’s stories, sorrows and silences.

Guests:

• Laurie Hertzel was a journalist and the longtime book review editor at the Minnesota Star Tribune, retiring in 2023. She teaches creative nonfiction in the MFA program at the University of Georgia in Athens. She’s the author of three books, including the memoir "News to Me: Adventures of an Accidental Journalist," which won a 2011 Minnesota Book Award, and “Ghosts of Fourth Street: My Family, a Death, and the Hills of Duluth,” which was published earlier this year.