Joan Silber

Just terrific. There was such a winning combination of un-showy writing and real insight into—and compassion for—the human condition at work, I believed in it all the way through. Every time I started a story wondering exactly why I should care about these characters, she gradually and utterly convinced me. Which I'm sure was the point, and well taken. And Dorothy Day was in it! Really nice, subtle work.

[b:The Art of Time in Fiction: As Long as It Takes|6478867|The Art of Time in Fiction As Long as It Takes|Joan Silber|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1312028907s/6478867.jpg|6670083]is a craft book for authors, but Silber also has a stellar book list with descriptions of the use of time in fiction. Even without concern for how to use time in a novel or short story, you could read the titles in her bibliography and know what good writing is all about. What a list! From Chekhov's "The Darling" show more to Henry James ("The Beast in the Jungle"), some Proust and deMaupassant, all the way to Denis Johnson and Alice Munro and Arundhati Roy. Many short stories are included but novels as well. There are translations from Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, French and Italian. There are books I have never heard of (Ya Hua's To Live) and short stories I've missed, even a challenge or two such as [b:The Diary Of Soren Kierkegaard|281664|The Diary Of Soren Kierkegaard|Søren Kierkegaard|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347742527s/281664.jpg|273239]The Diary of Soren Kierkegaard. I want to jump into a hammock with this list and forget my current fiction pickups at the library. Her clarity and love of literature underlies an informative and helpful discussion of time as it is handled in story, how it is slowed down or speeded up, or circular or fabulously upended but, quoting Kierkegaard, "life can only be understood backward but has to be lived forward." Any which way it moves in time, read Silber's succinct thoughts and explore her bibliography. show less

What do we need to be happy? Love? Money? Work? Family? Joan Silber takes on the question with her usual deft touch here, though without ever addressing it head on. Beginning with Ethan, a young Manhattan lawyer who discovers that his father has a second family, Silber unspools a web of lovers, siblings, parents, and children, from Greenwich Village to Bangkok, whose searches for fulfillment ripple outward in unexpected ways. From the entanglements of Ethan’s half brothers in Queens to his show more new boyfriend’s dying ex, whose sister watches them care for him warily even as she rekindles an old flame, to a young filmmaker living with her mother’s regrets and her sister’s capriciousness, each set of choices—infidelity, caretaking, the rejection of parents’ values and money, the work to build an extended family based on love and loyalty—affects the others in ways both subtle and large. Silber moves easily in and out of her characters’ heads; the novel is deceptively airy yet, given a reflective reading, has an ethical center without the shortcut of easy morality. show less

I loved this—delightful, a little profound but not obsessively so. Actually it made me think of Prezi—remember that, the presentation software that everybody wanted to play with a few years back because they were so sick of Powerpoint, how you could make it swoop in and out and go from macro to micro and back again? I hated Prezi, it made me dizzy. But this book is what Prezi wished it could be. Silber uses these beautiful little declarative sentences to paint a whole mural, and it's show more just neat how she does it—plus entertaining and very sweet. This is a morally decent novel and god knows we need more of those right now. show less