Memories of the Future (novel)

The novel contains autobiographical elements.^[2] Writing for the New York Times, Judith Shulevitz referred to the novel as an example of autofiction.^[2] The novel contains drawings by Hustvedt of several men, including Marcel Duchamp and Donald Trump.^[1]

In a review for The Financial Times, Catherine Taylor compared the work to the "best" of the filmography of American director David Lynch.^[3] Critics highlighted Hustvedt's depiction of New York City, with Sam Sacks crediting the depiction of S.H.'s relationship with a neighbor, Lucy, as accurate to the experience of living in a large city.^[4] In her review for The Guardian, Sarah Crown praised the inclusion of the city, writing that Hustvedt "joyously depicts" New York as "hot, dirty and cacophonous".^[5]

Writing for The Los Angeles Review of Books, Elena Goukassian compared Memories of the Future unfavorably to Hustvedt's debut novel, The Blindfold.^[6] Goukassian praised The Blindfold for "leaving readers to draw [their] own conclusions" while writing that Memories of the Future "suffers from over-explanation".^[6] Goukassian attributes this tendency to the "Trump era", during which she writes that there "[...] appears to be a wider trend among writers and artists of all kinds in creating works that drill their themes into the minds of their audiences".^[6]

The novel was long-listed for the 2020 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction.^[7]