Author Laurie Hertzel revisits the ghosts of her Duluth childhood

MPR News with Angela Davis · May 26, 2026 · 46m

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…