Joan Silber

When a man discovers his father in New York has long had another, secret, family--a wife and two kids--the interlocking fates of both families lead to surprise loyalties, love triangles, and a reservoir of inner strength. Ethan, a young lawyer in New York, learns that his father has long kept a second family--a Thai wife and two kids living in Queens. In the aftermath of this revelation, Ethan's mother spends a year working abroad, returning much changed, and events introduce her to the other wife. Across town, Ethan's half brothers are caught in their own complicated journeys: one brother's penchant for minor delinquency has escalated, and the other must travel to Bangkok to bail him out, while the bargains their mother has struck about love and money continue to shape their lives. As Ethan finds himself caught in a love triangle of his own, the interwoven fates of these two households elegantly unfurl to encompass a woman rallying to help an ill brother with an unreliable lover and a filmmaker with a girlhood spent in Nepal. Evoking a generous and humane spirit, and a story that ranges over three continents, Secrets of Happiness elucidates the ways people marshal the resources at hand to forge their own forms of joy.

Secrets of Happiness

Reyna knows her relationship with Boyd isn't perfect, yet she sees him through a three-month stint at Riker's Island, their bond growing tighter. Kiki, now settled in the East Village after a youth that took her to Turkey and other far-off places -- and loves -- around the world, admires her niece's spirit but worries that motherhood to four-year-old Oliver might complicate a difficult situation. Little does she know that Boyd is pulling Reyna into a smuggling scheme, across state lines, violating his probation. When Reyna takes a step back, her small act of resistance sets into motion a tapestry of events that affect the lives of loved ones and strangers around them.

A Novel

Improvement

Fiction imagines for us a stopping point from which life can be seen as intelligible," asserts Joan Silber in The Art of Time in Fiction. The end point of a story determines its meaning, and one of the main tasks a writer faces is to define the duration of a plot. Silber uses wide-ranging examples from F. Scott Fitzgerald, Chinua Achebe, and Arundhati Roy, among others, to illustrate five key ways in which time unfolds in fiction. In clear-eyed prose, Silber elucidates a tricky but vital aspect of the art of fiction.

As Long as It Takes

The Art of Time in Fiction

A debut anthology of short fiction explores the issue of human longings and how sex and religion have become parallel forms of comfort and dedication, linking each story with the following by a minor element in one tale that becomes a major theme of the next. Reprint. 100,000 first printing.

Ideas of Heaven: A Ring of Stories

James Lasdun

Tash Aw

Laura Furman

The O. Henry Prize Stories 2014 gathers twenty of the best short stories of the year, from thousands published in literary magazines. The winning stories roam the world, from Nigeria to Venice, from an erupting volcano in Iceland to a brothel in the old Wild West. They feature a dazzling array of characters: a young American falling in love in Japan, a girl raised by snake-handling fundamentalists, an old man mourning his late wife, a fierce guard dog with a talent for escape. Accompanying the stories are the editor's introduction, essays from the eminent jurors on their favorite stories, observations from the winning writers on what inspired them, and an extensive resource list.

The O. Henry prize stories

A passionate urban love story about two New Yorkers follows the union of Elisa, a sexy young art school student, and Gabe, a cool, serious man much older than her, as their new life together is threatened by past mistakes such as casual sex and drugs.

Lucky Us

A dazzling new collection of interconnected stories by the National Book Award finalist. When is it wise to be a fool for something? What makes people want to be better than they are? From New York to India to Paris, from the Catholic Worker movement to Occupy Wall Street, the characters in Joan Silber’s dazzling new story cycle tackle this question head-on. Vera, the shy, anarchist daughter of missionary parents, leaves her family for love and activism in New York. A generation later, her own doubting daughter insists on the truth of being of two minds, even in marriage. The adulterous son of a Florida hotel owner steals money from his family and departs for Paris, where he takes up with a young woman and finds himself outsmarted in turn. Fools ponders the circle of winners and losers, dupers and duped, and the price we pay for our beliefs. Fools is a luminous, intelligent, and rewarding work of fiction from the author for whom the Boston Globe said, "No other writer can make a few small decisions ripple across the globe, and across time, with more subtlety and power."

Fools: Stories

When a man discovers his father in New York has long had another, secret, family—a wife and two kids—the interlocking fates of both families lead to surprise loyalties, love triangles, and a reservoir of inner strength—"It would be impossible to overstate just how good this book is" (Ann Patchett). Ethan, a young lawyer in New York, learns that his father has long kept a second family—a Thai wife and two kids living in Queens. In the aftermath of this revelation, Ethan's mother spends a year working abroad, returning much changed, as events introduce her to the other wife. Across town, Ethan's half brothers are caught in their own complicated journeys: one brother's penchant for minor delinquency has escalated, and the other must travel to Bangkok to bail him out, while the bargains their mother has struck about love and money continue to shape their lives. As Ethan finds himself caught in a love triangle of his own, the interwoven fates of these two households elegantly unfurl to encompass a woman rallying to help an ill brother with an unreliable lover and a filmmaker with a girlhood spent in Nepal. Evoking a generous and humane spirit, and a story that ranges over three continents, Secrets of Happiness elucidates the ways people marshal the resources at hand to forge their own forms of joy.

Reyna knows her relationship with Boyd isn't perfect, yet as she visits him throughout his three-month stint in prison, their bond grows tighter. Kiki, now settled in New York after a journey that took her to Turkey and around the world, admires her niece's spirit but worries that she always picks the wrong man. Little does she know that the otherwise honourable Boyd is pulling Reyna into a scheme which violates his probation. When Reyna ultimately decides to remove herself for the sake of her four-year-old child, her small act of resistance sets into motion a tapestry of events that affect the lives of loved ones and strangers around them. A novel that examines conviction, connection and the possibility of generosity in the face of loss, Improvement is as intricately woven together as Kiki's beloved Turkish rugs and as colourful as the tattoos decorating Reyna's body, with narrative twists and turns as surprising and unexpected as the lives all around us. The Boston Globe says of Joan Silber 'No other writer can make a few small decisions ripple across the globe, and across time, with more subtlety and power.' Improvement is Silber's most shining achievement yet.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD Set in modern-day America and France, Renaissance Italy and Boxer Rebellion China, these stories embrace whole lifetimes, much in the manner of Alice Munro and William Trevor. Joan Silber skilfully and subtly ties one story to the next, as a minor element in one becomes a major element in the next, until the last is tied convincingly to the first. Intense in subject yet restrained in tone, they are about longings - often held for years - and the ways in which sex and religion can become parallel forms of dedication and comfort. From a wannabe dancer in contemporary New York City to missionaries in China, Ideas of Heaven showcases Joan Silber's extraordinary deftness as she illuminates love, faith and sex with great originality and profundity.

Ideas of Heaven

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD When is it wise to be a fool for something? From New York to India to Paris, from the Catholic Worker movement to Occupy Wall Street, the characters in Joan Silber's dazzling connected stories tackle this question head-on. Vera, the shy, anarchist daughter of missionary parents, leaves her family for love and activism in New York. A generation later, her doubting daughter insists on the truth of being of two minds, even in marriage. The adulterous son of a Florida hotel owner steals money from his family and departs for Paris, where he finds himself outsmarted in turn. Fools ponders the circle of winners and losers, dupers and duped, and the price we pay for our beliefs, offering readers an unforgettable look at work, faith, love and the eternal quest for personal integrity.

Fools

Winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award: "Unqualified praise goes to this rarity: an extraordinary novel about ordinary people."--Chicago Tribune The year is 1940, and Rhoda Taber is pregnant with her first child. Satisfied with her comfortable house in a New Jersey suburb and her reliable husband, Leonard, she expects that her life will be predictable and secure. Surprised by an untimely death, an unexpected illness, and the contrary natures of her two daughters, Rhoda finds that fate undermines her sense of entitlement and security. Shrewd, wry, and sometimes bitter, Rhoda reveals herself to be a wonderfully flawed and achingly real woman caught up in the unexpectedness of her own life.

Household Words: A Novel

A WASHINGTON POST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR When a man discovers his father in New York has long had another, secret, family—a wife and two kids—the interlocking fates of both families lead to surprise loyalties, love triangles, and a reservoir of inner strength in this "expansive and elegantly crafted novel" (Fresh Air, NPR). "Rich with the complexities of life . . . the stories create a world made fully dimensional through changes of perspective—major characters appear and reappear as part of one or another’s experience and testimony . . . Pull any life’s thread and you discover a mesh of involvement that soon takes in all the others. It is a fine thing, subtly done, and truly exhilarating." —The Wall Street Journal Ethan, a young lawyer in New York, learns that his father has long kept a second family—a Thai wife and two kids living in Queens. In the aftermath of this revelation, Ethan's mother spends a year working abroad, returning much changed, as events introduce her to the other wife. Across town, Ethan's half brothers are caught in their own complicated journeys: one brother's penchant for minor delinquency has escalated, and the other must travel to Bangkok to bail him out, while the bargains their mother has struck about love and money continue to shape their lives. As Ethan finds himself caught in a love triangle of his own, the interwoven fates of these two households elegantly unfurl to encompass a woman rallying to help an ill brother with an unreliable lover and a filmmaker with a girlhood spent in Nepal. Evoking a generous and humane spirit, and a story that ranges over three continents, Secrets of Happiness elucidates the ways people marshal the resources at hand to forge their own forms of joy.

A tale by the National Book Award finalist author of Ideas of Heaven features an intricate web of crossed paths and enlightening journeys in which a sequence of characters imparts key lessons in perspective. Original.

The Size of the World: A Novel

This collection of interconnected stories begins with the anarchist daughter of missionaries in Manhattan who runs away to be an activist and ends with a wealthy young adulterer in Paris who is outsmarted by the object of his desire.

Once upon a very recent time in New York City, there was a couple, two ordinary single people who met the way city people meet. Even though mismatched, they fell in love. And after some hesitations they decided, finally, to marry-only to look up and find their world caving in around them. Sexy, vivacious Elisa, of the miniskirts and tiny T-shirts, still in art school and just coming off an affair with a temper-driven fellow artist, initiated things. She came on to cool, quiet Gabe who wore his hair in a graying ponytail and kept a low profile. A good bit older than Elisa-more than twenty years older, in fact-he found himself buoyed by her youth and her brashness. To her great surprise, Elisa craved Gabe's watchfulness and solicitude. That Gabe's past included a successful drug dealing business bothered her not at all. And certainly he was unconcerned that Elisa's more current past included a lot of casual sex. Neither of them ever expected to have to answer for what had been so easy for Gabe and so enjoyable for Elisa. But truth be known, the one obvious thing they had in common was the burden their pasts suddenly put onto their future. Joan Silber has written a love story for the turn of the twenty-first century, one that takes into rich account the styles and pressures of contemporary urban life. But more than that, she has created two characters who throb with real-life personality, passion, and courage.

In the City

Comfortable with her home in a New Jersey suburb and her reliable husband, Leonard, Rhoda Taber expects that her life will continue to be secure and predictable, but her expectations are turned upside down by an untimely death, unexpected illness, her daughters' contradictory natures, and other surprises. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.

Joan Silber

Books

Your next favorite book is out there