Alum discusses his work, his time at Columbia, and penning a new chapter of life after college

Celebrated author Paul Auster, CC ’69, has a tip that he likes to give to aspiring writers: Unless you’re crazy, don’t write for a living. His belief is that if anyone actually listens to this advice, then that person shouldn’t be a writer anyway. When Auster arrived on the Columbia campus at age 18, he already knew that he wanted to write.

Auster has since come a long way in his literary career—his most recent work “Sunset Park” was released last month to critical acclaim, and he finished up a successful book tour last week.

“Sunset Park” explores themes that have intrigued Auster since the publication of his acclaimed 1982 debut memoir “The Invention of Solitude,” such as notions of chance, fate, and the search for personal meaning. “Sunset Park” offers a fictional yet realistic portrayal of a young man living in the recession, estranged from his parents. His college dropout protagonist, 28-year-old Miles Heller, resides in Florida. There, he preserves foreclosed homes to be put back on the real estate market, and is haunted by the memory of his stepbrother’s tragic death.

“Sunset Park” depicts people ruined by the terrible state of the economy, and Auster uses the recession to bring into question the purpose of individual lives. The themes of failure and despair are classic Auster; he shows that the recession was more than an economic collapse, but a personal one too—he exposes his character’s fears and shortcomings.

Of “Sunset Park,” Auster said, “When you get seized by something, something grabs hold of you, and it becomes so interesting. You want to explore it.”

Auster has always been somewhat of an adventurer. His time at Columbia coincided with a period of social unrest, and he left the University briefly to study in Paris. According to Auster, the late ‘60s was an embattled time at Columbia—students were very feisty and argued with their professors constantly.

“It was and is a rather dismal place—there’s something alienating about it,” Auster said. “The faculty is somehow indifferent to the sufferings of their own students. The atmosphere that the administration created was one of the reasons the campus exploded in ’68 for many factors—the war in particular.”

Auster was one of 700 students who participated in the sit-in during the University protests of 1968 and was consequently arrested by the New York City Police Department. At a Columbia reunion in spring 2008, the 40th anniversary of the protests, Auster found it very moving to see his fellow students who were at the University during that tumultuous time.

“Time lives on very vividly for most of the people who participated,” Auster said.

But none of these events discouraged Auster from spending over five years enrolled at the University. A determined student, Auster spent his undergraduate years taking mostly English courses, eventually earning both his B.A. and M.A. in English and Comparative Literature. As an undergraduate, the Core Curriculum courses—particularly Literature Humanities—had the biggest impact on Auster.

“They’re cramming books down your throat every week, masterpieces that most 18-year-olds have not read yet,” Auster said. “It was extraordinary. And I’m so grateful that Columbia had that course, because it opened up so much for me.”

The syllabus for Literature Humanities was different in the 1960s than it is today. According to Auster, the course now strives to be more politically correct than it was back when he attended the University.

“It was all dead men we read,” Auster said. “I don’t think there were any women writers on the list.”

Post-Columbia, Auster took a sharp turn in his career, working in the merchant marine for about six months. According to Auster, his experience on the high seas was “another kind of education.” He traveled around the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Coast, loading and unloading jet fuel form an oil tanker. After earning some money—and a high lottery number that spared him from the Vietnam draft—Auster decided to head back to Paris—and what was supposed to be just a yearlong stay extended into three and a half.

“Paris was a very important time for me,” Auster said. “I suppose it’s where I really understood that I was going to write, and that was it.”

Auster returned to New York in the summer of 1974 and has been living here ever since with his wife, novelist Siri Hustvedt, and daughter, singer/actress Sophie Auster.

It’s no surprise that Auster ultimately ended up back in New York, where he launched his literary education and career. The vibrancy of the city, after all, was Auster’s primary reason for attending Columbia in the first place. Auster said, “I wanted to go to Columbia because it was in New York. This is the great advantage of going there: If you want the city, you’ve got it.”