Louise DeSalvo, a "memoirist, biographer, scholar, teacher and mentor to myriad students and writers," died October 31, the Star-Ledger reported. She was 76. DeSalvo "had a literary career as distinguished as it was groundbreaking.... As a third-generation Italian-American, she proudly claimed and wrote about her working-class ethnic origins with a profound understanding of the transformative power of cross-cultural solidarity."
DeSalvo's books include The Art of Slow Writing; Writing as a Way of Healing; The House of Early Sorrows; Chasing Ghosts; Vertigo; Crazy in the Kitchen; and Virginia Woolf: The Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on Her Life and Work.
In a tribute, Hunter College president Jennifer J. Raab wrote: "Louise was a cherished member of the Hunter College community, both in her professional capacity as the Jenny Hunter Endowed Scholar for Creative Writing and Literature and as a beloved friend to all who knew her. An acclaimed fiction writer and memoirist, Louise drew on her personal experiences growing up in a working-class Italian-American family in Hoboken. Her book Vertigo, which won the Gay Talese Award and was a finalist for Italy's Premio Acerbi prize for literature, is widely recognized as the most-influential Italian-American memoir. Louise's writings on Virginia Woolf were equally significant. Her scholarly works and biographical studies remain among the most authoritative books ever written about Woolf. In addition, Louise edited editions of Woolf's debut novel, Melymbrosia, as well as The Letters of Vita Sackville-West to Virginia Woolf, which provided groundbreaking insights about the profound and passionate relationship that shaped both women's lives and their writing."