Siri Hustvedt & Paul Auster   Previously, Work in Progress brought you John Freeman’s conversations with Jeffrey Eugenides and Jonathan Franzen as exclusive previews of How to Read a Novelist, Freeman’s book of more than fifty author profiles. This week, to mark the publication of How to Read a Novelist (it's on-sale now!) and in anticipation of the November release of Paul Auster's Report from the Interior, we bring you a special bonus conversation that's not included in How to Read a Novelist: Freeman talking with Siri Hustvedt and Paul Auster in 2008, on the eve of the publications of Hustvedt's novel The Sorrows of an American and Auster's Man in the Dark.

Jeffrey Eugenides by John Freeman For the past fifteen years or so, whenever a novel has been published, John Freeman has been there to greet it. As a critic for over two hundred newspapers worldwide and onetime president of the NBCC, he's reviewed thousands of books and interviewed hundreds of authors. You might have thought his recent five-year stint as editor of Granta would have slowed him down some, but just weeks ago he was still finding time to sit down with the likes of Jennifer Egan, Jeffrey Eugenides, Jonathan Franzen, and Aleksandar Hemon as he rounded out the contents of How to Read a Novelist, his book of more than fifty author profiles coming from FSG Originals this October. Over the next two weeks, Work in Progress will publish an exclusive two-part preview of the book. Up first: Freeman’s conversation with FSG’s own Jeffrey Eugenides . . .