Laurie Hertzel presents Ghosts of Fourth Street with Kao Kalia Yang

An open, frank rumination on a brother’s death and its reverberations throughout a family

Every family has its stories and secrets. Laurie Hertzel’s family had more than its share. At an early age, Laurie, the seventh of the ten Hertzel children, took on the challenge of sorting them out. Not old enough to be one of the Big Kids, yet too old to be with the Three Little Kids, she spent most of her time alone, reading, wandering, and observing her family as they moved around her in their house in Duluth. Though her parents were not warm, there were moments of closeness in those years—gifts of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books and special trips to the dairy for a sundae—but everything shattered after the sudden death of Laurie’s oldest sibling, eighteen-year-old Bobby, when she was just nine years old.

Moving back and forth in time, Laurie reflects on Bobby’s death and what happens to a family’s story when no one can talk about a tragedy and its toll. In Ghosts of Fourth Street, readers witness how the apparition of memories, the shadow of needs unmet, and the spirit of a family once whole all linger long after the death of a child and brother. As Laurie shares her experiences, we see the emergence of her fascination with story and truth as she teaches herself to read and finds solace and inspiration in books amid the tensions and competing agendas within her big, complicated family.

With keen attention, candor, and grace, Laurie paints a vivid portrait of 1960s Duluth as she poignantly examines a family contending with grief and the fact that life steadily goes on—snow and school buses, Christmases and Thanksgivings, iceskating and tobogganing and climbing trees, with ghosts always lingering at the edges.

Laurie Hertzel spent fifteen years as the books editor at the Minneapolis Star Tribune and now reviews for the Boston Globe, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. Her memoir News to Me: Adventures of an Accidental Journalist, also published by the University of Minnesota Press, won a Minnesota Book Award. She is a past president of the National Book Critics Circle and has taught at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, The Ohio State University, and the University of Georgia. In 2023, she received the Kerlan Award in recognition of exceptional support for children’s literature. She is a Distinguished Professor of Practice in thelow-residency MFA program in narrative nonfiction at the University of Georgia.

Kao Kalia Yang is an award-winning Hmong American teacher, speaker, and writer. Her work crosses genres and audiences and centers Hmong children and families who live in our world, who dream, hurt, and hope in it. Yang’s writing and speaking are concerned with the plight of refugees from around our world, ideas of belonging, and structures of power. She holds an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Carleton College, was the 2024 Star Tribune Artist of the Year, and is a Guggenheim Fellow. Kao Kalia Yang lives in St. Paul, Minnesota with her family. Learn more at kaokaliayang.com.

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