The Island Dwellers: Stories

by Jen Silverman

For readers of Miranda July, Rebecca Lee, and Mary Gaitskill, a debut short-story collection that is a mesmerizing blend of wit, transgression, and heart.

A passive-aggressive couple in the midst of a divorce compete over whose new fling is more exotic. A Russian migrant in Tokyo agonizes over the money her lover accepts from a yakuza. A dead body on a drug dealer's floor leads to the strangest first date ever.

In this razor-sharp debut collection, Jen Silverman delivers eleven interconnected stories that take place in expat bars, artist colonies, train platforms, and matchbox apartments in the United States and Japan. Unforgettable characters crisscross through these transient spaces, loving, hurting, and leaving each other as they experience the loneliness and dangerous freedom that comes with being an outsider. In "Maria of the Grapes," a pair of damaged runaways get lost in the seductive underworld beneath Tokyo's clean streets; in "Pretoria," a South African expat longs for the chaos of her homeland as she contemplates a marriage proposal; in "Girl Canadian Shipwreck," a young woman in Brooklyn seeks permission to flee from her boyfriend and his terrible performance art; in "Maureen," an aspiring writer realizes that her beautiful, neurotic boss is lonelier than she lets on.

The Island Dwellers ranges near and far in its exploration of solitude and reinvention, identity and sexuality, family and home. Jen Silverman is the rare talent who can evoke the landscape of a whole life in a single subtle phrase--vital, human truths that you may find yourself using as a map to your own heart.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Contemporary, Anthologies, Queer, Audiobook, Collections

259 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2018

About the author

Jen Silverman is a New York-based writer. Born in the U.S., she was raised across the U.S., Europe and Asia. Her theatre work includes The Moors (Yale Repertory Theatre premiere, off-Broadway with The Playwrights Realm, Susan Smith Blackburn finalist); The Roommate (Actor’s Theatre of Louisville Humana world premiere, multiple regional productions including South Coast Rep, SF Playhouse and Williamstown Theatre Festival, upcoming at Steppenwolf); Phoebe In Winter (Off-off Broadway with Clubbed Thumb); Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties (Woolly Mammoth premiere); and All the Roads Home, a play with songs (Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park premiere).

Jen is a member of New Dramatists, a Core Writer at the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis, an affiliated artist with SPACE on Ryder Farm, and has developed work with the O’Neill, New York Theatre Workshop, Playpenn, Portland Center Stage, The Ground Floor Residency at Berkeley Rep, and the Royal Court in London among other places. She’s a two-time MacDowell fellow, recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts grant, the Helen Merrill Award, an LMCC Fellowship, and the Yale Drama Series Award. She was the 2016-2017 Playwrights of New York (PoNY) Fellow at the Lark. Jen has a two-book deal with Random House for a collection of stories (The Island Dwellers, pub date May 1, 2018) and a novel. Education: Brown, Iowa Playwrights Workshop, Juilliard.

Reviews

[Mary Lins · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The thing about paranoia in the twenty-first Century is that, at some point, it's impossible to know if you're crazy, or if you're astute."

Jen Silverman's short story collection, "The Island Dwellers", is full of wry observations like the one above. Her wit; humorous sarcasm and insightful irony, infuse all the stories in this immensely enjoyable collection. Certainly telegraphed by the title, themes of isolation, entrapment, and escape are predominant. What happens when characters do not have the option, in situations and relationships, to: "Just leave." ?

Setting these stories both in the US and in Japan, beautifully sets up the opportunity to look at individualism at the expense of community, American capitalism against socialism, and several "fish out of water" examinations.

I enjoyed every story in the collection, my favorites were; "White People" where two extremely passive-aggressive people try to break up via "Divorce Dinners" and new (much younger) partners. Oh, how they get the "wrong end of the stick"! Also the story "Maureen", about a young writer working for the ultimate narcissist on a constantly-changing screenplay. But my very favorite was “Surveillance” (from whence came the quote at the top), featuring wonderfully quirky characters (and pets); Agnes is paranoid, Sammy is a hypochondriac, and Oliver is an impetuous and easily distracted pet-sitter. It’s so well written and funny I read it twice!

One of the stories has a character named Abayomiolorunkoje who says it means: People Wanted to Humiliate Me But God Did Not Allow It. Who couldn't love a story with a character like that?!
Silverman's characters are gay, straight, and gender-fluid. Some appear in more than one story, though these are not interconnected stories.

These stories reflect a fresh new voice and a fresh new perspective for modern times. Random House will soon be publishing Silverman's debut novel (she is also a playwright) and maybe these stories are meant as the canary in the coal mine. If so, the canary lives! I can't wait to read her novel!

[Bandit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maybe ever (wo)man is an island after all. Not a stationary one, more like a coasting island, waiting to meet up with other islands to save themselves from a terrible loneliness seems to be inherent and oppressive. Anyway, that seems to be the leitmotif of Silverman’s short story collection, established prominently in the first one and continuing throughout. And not just metaphorically either, she literally sets these stories on the islands, namely New York and Japan, possibly the loneliest of them all. In fact, the only other more suitable alternative title would be Lonely Island and that’s already taken by one of my favorite music acts, so…Yes, back to the book. If you check out the author’s bio or photos or blog, you’ll sort of have an expectation of what her writing would be like (I did this in retrospect upon finishing reading) and sure enough it’s just like that. Giving voice to this terrible generation of millennials, uber hipsterish, tragically hip or tragically self involved, pretentiously artistic, overwhelmingly PC yet convoluted in conversation, sexually flexible but romantically crippled, wildly uncertain and strikingly aimless latest version of the young the proverbial youth is being wasted on. I just didn’t expect how compelling this would be. And that takes serious talent…to take an uninteresting, possibly repellant subject and makes it into an utterly engaging read. This tangentially connected islands of individuals grappling their way through life either through the flashy neons of Japan in all their curated debauchery or brutal indifference of New York, struggling to connect…it reads real, authentic, like you may not want to know these characters off the page, but you can care about them on the page. At the very least they make for compelling wrecks as they go off the rails. If reading is supposed to make us less lonely (as I believe it ought to), this book about loneliness peculiarly enough does the trick. Strangely enjoyable reading experience. Thanks Netgalley.

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is that rare gem, a collection that is unfailingly excellent from first to last. Those readers who choose short stories know this is a fact - very seldom does one pick up a book of short stories and find that each provides clear insight, original execution without a clinker in the mix. Silverman's accuracy in dialogue comes from her prodigious output as a dramatist, and her direct portrayals of women (all her first person narrators are women) usually living in countries and situations outside their comfort zones arise from her personal history.

Born in Connecticut to "itinerant scientists," she was moved from one international location to another, so her descriptions of life in Japan, for instance, have the varnish of truth. In many stories, the question of interpersonal connection is examined, of truth and betrayal. There is some beautiful writing (a dancer compiling a "portfolio of gestures," "...gossip from the factory - old story of too many hungry people shoved into the same small space in a country that isn’t theirs.." "How can we know what will come of the strangers we bring close?") In the blackest of black comedies, a former yakuza is on a first and last date with a young woman. And in "Pike," a young writer draws a comparison between her romance with an undocumented artist and that of Sylvia Plath/Ted Hughes/Assia Wevill, throwing light on the nature and consequences of obsession and trust. A publisher's note on the front of my ARC of this book announces they will publish Silverman's first novel that is in production. I can't wait.

[Lolly K Dandeneau · Rating 5 out of 5]

vai my blog: https://bookstalkerblog.wordpress.com/
'I am concerned because Camilo is inherently clumsy with things like words and money and other people’s feelings.'

I devoured these interconnected stories that are about being shipwrecked in loneliness yet in constant motion, and every character seems to be in a sort of emotional underground. There was something so funny to me about Girl Canadian Shipwreck, the performance art had me laughing about the discomfort the girlfriend feels when she’s meant to rally support for her lover, at her desire to escape the very thing her boyfriend feels so passionate about. White People is perfection as Cynthia falls for Venezuelan Elias, and builds in her mind such ridiculous cultural clichés that you can’t feel bad for her in the least. Tired of white conversations, the rich meals and the sterile, privileged life she was living, Cynthina imagines (while in the process of divorce from her husband Seth) how different a life she could lead, now that she’s found Elias. There is meat to a bohemian existence, so what if she has to forsake creature comforts? But does she really? Can’t she just return to wealth, isn’t this just ‘slumming’ for her, so very brave she imagines she is for this love? Can she really remove herself from her charmed life, can someone’s ‘ethnicity’ rub off on you? Isn't he just another 'exotic dish' she orders? I love the reaction Elias has later when he uncovers the past Cynthia has invented for him. There isn’t a story in this collection that failed to engage me with intelligence, humor or devastating sorrow. Whether characters were adrift, spinning in circles, begging for love or using it to manipulate as a means for survival, I was invested in the outcome.

Expats living in Japan deal with more than complicated relationships, there is the threat of the yakuza shadowing lovers when one becomes a kept woman. A body in a suitcase manages to be a sexy date story for a girl named Rachel in Wolf. Love hotels paint the scene in Mamushi, where a tale of brutal sexuality encompasses a tender love story that explains so much about the distance inside of Ancash. Love that can’t be spoken, something broken inside of Ancash that makes him cold, the desperate violent desire he inspires in others, so many swoon for him but the one he loves, wanting nothing more than to keep him for their own. Ancash appears to have a fluid sexuality, but there is someone, only one person whom really has teeth in his heart, and doesn’t even know it. Because sometimes the one you want to understand you can’t, and you protect them from yourself.

Some of the stories are light and funny until the next tale plunges you into the dark, disturbing pain of other characters yet all of them are equally captivating. There is so much said in every terrible choice made. There is avoidance in easy blindness, in what we project unto each other neglecting to really see what is inside of someone. We all do it, to some degree. It’s hard to review this collection because the tales are all different, though they are connected and unique.

Pike interestingly had me remembering one of my favorite biographies, it is mentioned in the story. Lover of Unreason by Yehuda Koren and Eliat Negev, about the woman who came between Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, Assia Wevill. If you get a chance, read it, you won’t be disappointed. I was tickled to read about Assia Wevill again, as I swallowed the afore-mentioned biography years ago, Silverman’s story about Cora was like a confection, poisoned by the ‘other woman’ that gives rise to another Assia. Innocuous meetings are often the ones we should pay attention to, as they can be the beginning or ending of our own love stories. Much like Hughes and Plath, a woman named Cora enters the colony of artists and stirs more than passions, is such a powerful presence that she cannot be ignored, nor her magnetic appeal denied. Is she an act? Cora resembles Assia in her hunger and need for company, that bottomless pit that can never be filled. “She’s like a tornado, everything she touches ends in destruction.” The highs and lows of love, the gaping wounds of betrayal, that ever-present other… other woman, other man, other something we all face in relationships, fuels the story and is painfully relatable, if your eyes are open. When love is young and fresh, we don’t notice the looming threats waiting to brutalize it. A tale of trust and it’s absence, the Pike is the perfect ending to this gorgeous collection of biting, intelligently written stories. Yes, add this to your to be read pile! I cannot wait to hear what other readers take from it!

Publication Date: May 1, 2018

Random House

[Bonnie Brody · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I most enjoyed about Jen Silverman's collection of short stories, 'The Island Dwellers', is that nothing seemed off limits. Emotions as raw as sand paper shared pages with emotions as smooth as an infant's skin;

The stories take place in several parts of the world. The second one in the collection, 'Pretoria', explores what it's like to be in an intimacy averse relationship. Or perhaps there is more going on here. Daniela, a South African, has been living in Japan with her Japanese boyfriend Iseya and has recently realized she is pregnant. Her time in Japan is school-related and no matter how many ways Daniela looks at the situation, she thinks Iseya is too soft to make it in South Africa.

If you were to pick only one story to read in this anthology, 'Maureen' is the one to choose. I have no doubt that this story is heads and tails above all of the rest. It tells of a young woman who has travelled to New York with the goal of becoming a writer. Meanwhile, she is living in her cousin's apartment. One day the writer meets Maureen, an enigmatic, self-absorbed woman who is filled with ideas. She appears to be riding a skateboard that rarely comes in for a landing. Theoretically, it is difficult for the writer to tell just how crazy Maureen is. Maureen has offered the writer one thousand dollars for a concept if it becomes useful to Maureen.

On the surface, this shouldn't be too difficult, but Maureen appears to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time and the writer is beginning to feel drained. The more Maureen needs, the nore the writer gives ,but this pattern is unrelenting. Maureen is like a human vacuum cleaner, sucking all of the writer's emotions from her.

Ms.Silverman has great insight into people's characters, often making the inter dialogue more intriguing than the character's actions.

[Bonnye Reed · Rating 4 out of 5]

GNab The Island Dwellers is a loosely connected collection of short stories featuring backgrounds around the world and young people, mostly adrift, who are looking to connect to life. In places it was quite sad, and others portrayed simple lackadaisical life-goes-on tales. This didn't work, so we will move on, to the next island, the next job, the next party.

I found the information shared about the various locales intriguing - a completely different look at world centers such as Singapore and Johannesburg which I have previously only 'seen' through the eyes of the not so young. And the humor, often sarcastic but always astute, kept me reading way past my bedtime.

I received a free electronic copy of this collection of short stories from Netgalley, Jen Silverman, and Random House Publishing Group in exchange for an honest review. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me.

pub date May 1, 2018
Random House Publishing Group

[Cynthia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most of the stories in this collection are about the island of Japan and the characters are a mix of native Japanese and gaigin, foreigners, in this case westerners of everywhere other than Japan and the clash and mesh between the groups. Silverman’s prose is lovely and understated yet emotive. The main characters are young, mostly under age thirty, and they’re risk takers at best or flighty sensation seekers, at worst they have a death wish.

Some work as “host boys or girls” which is something like a prostitute to western thinking or I suppose a modern equivalent of geishas, not that I have a clear understanding of geisha culture. These aren’t loveless or uncaring users. Many of the relationships they form include tenderness and sincere caring. They interact with yakuzas who are something like what we in the US would categorize the mafia. I know it sounds like it would be difficult to empathize and relate to such characters but in Silverman’s skilled pen it’s easy. I also didn’t find myself writing these kids off as just kids, they were young and often misguided but they were complicated and sincerely trying to deal with the demons in their past and form meaningful careers and relationships. I think most readers will find it easy to be lulled into this world.

4.5/5 stars

Thank you to the publisher for providing an ecopy.

[Alina Colleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of achingly sad, achingly lovely short stories. Though it took me a while to realize, each story focuses on a dysfunctional relationship. As the old Tolstoy adage goes, each one is dysfunctional in its own way.

Reading this will make you question whether you, too, are in a dysfunctional relationship, but the island dwellers Jen Silverman conjures up are more desperate, more lonely, and more twisted than most of us will likely ever be. And in that sense, like waking up from a nightmare and realizing it wasn’t real, those stories provide palpable relief.

Silverman is very talented. She is thoughtful, a keen observer of human nature, and curious about the ways humans navigate sexual relationships. Camilo, the insecure, gaslight-happy wannabe artist has to be one of the most villainous characters ever created. Don’t fall for anyone you meet at an artists’ colony!

Savor slowly.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Playwright Jen Silverman's deliciously addictive debut short story collection, THE ISLAND DWELLERS, collects 11 stories mostly set on the islands of New York City and Tokyo, Japan. Each story is told from a first-person perspective, but many of the characters make appearances in more than one tale. We first meet the beguiling and brash Ancash in "Maria of the Grapes" when club hostess Maria tries to seduce him. When she discovers he's a gay prostitute, their friendship expands until they fall into bed together. In "Mamushi," Ancash tells how as a 17-year-old he had an affair with a man twice his age. In order to feel anything, Ancash encourages the man to beat him.

In the very funny "Surveillance," hypochondriac narrator Sammy takes some breaks between worrying whether she has a brain tumor and why one breast is larger (and warmer to the touch) than the other to deal with her two friends Agnes and Oliver. Agnes is paranoid but Sammy muses, "The thing about paranoia in the twenty-first century is that, at some point, it's impossible to know if you're crazy, or if you're astute." Oliver is a pet-sitter with a high mortality rate for pets under his supervision. "I just feel like the universe is trying to tell me something," he says.

Silverman's disarming and unconventional characters are all searching for a connection with others. Some are battling loneliness or the fear of being alone but they're all blessed with quick wits and warmth. This is an outstanding short story debut.

Playwright Jen Silverman's exceptional debut collection of short stories, THE ISLAND DWELLERS, is charming and full of warmth and wit.

[Claude Bouchard · Rating 4 out of 5]

NOTE: I am reviewing this from an advance reader copy. This book will be published in May 2018.

This is a collection of short stories, focusing on people from various countries (Russia, US, Canada, Columbia) living abroad (mostly in Japan, though a few are in Manhattan), and in which a few characters recur in multiple stories. There are eleven stories. The book started off on a tiresome and irritating note, unfortunately...the first story, titled "Canadian Girl Shipwreck" (AWESOME title!), suffers from the most irritating "I'm an artsy ultra-hip sexually-fluid millennial in New York" ADHD vibe I've encountered so far in a book. Getting through it was a challenge and I was becoming disappointed that this was going to be the book's general narrative style. Fortunately, it's not. The remaining ten stories are much, much better written, with characters for whom you can actually care. Many of the characters are sexually fluid, rendering their hookup decisions sometimes believable, and sometimes baffling.

Overall, it's an interesting takes on interpersonal relationships, and sex, and how lonely one can still be while living in a major world metropolis with millions of other inhabitants. While I don't think it's something that will linger in my mind forever, making me want to read it again, I certainly enjoyed this book and would recommend it.

[Donna Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jen Silverman is a playwright with a list of awards as long as your arm. With this impressive collection of short stories, she steps into the world of prose with guns a-blazing. Thanks go to Net Galley and Random House for the DRC, which I received free and early in exchange for this honest review. This book is now for sale.

Silverman’s contemporary fiction is themed, as the title suggests, around people that live on islands in various parts of the world. Everything here is edgy and a little bit dark. Her characters are melancholy, naïve, neurotic, bent, and at times laugh-out-loud funny; she doesn’t leave her endings—or her readers—hanging, and I didn’t successfully predict the way any of her stories would turn out. We have destructive relationships; relationships that are hellishly unequal; artists that aren’t really; strange, strange animals—oh, hell, that Japanese pit viper! But the thing that ties these tales together, apart from the theme, is deft, tight writing.

Anyone planning a vacation should pack this title, whether in paper or digitally. Short stories are terrific for bed time and when traveling, because the end of each story gives the reader a reasonable place to pause even when the prose is masterfully rendered, as it is here. This volume was released May 1, 2018 and is highly recommended.

[USOM · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Disclaimer: I received this free book from Netgalley. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)

I think that The Island Dwellers makes some pretty broad claims about the questions and themes Silverman will explore - and I think it largely succeeds. Just in the first two stories alone - which kind of set the tone for the entire collection - these issues are grappled with. We are asked about how we make sense of home and our relationships to others around us. There's something, a theme in each story, that kind of pulls you along. Each story leads us somewhere and while they tackle similar issues, the characters are all different. The characters firmly, but gently, take your hand and move you forwards.

full review: https://utopia-state-of-mind.com/revi...

[Olivia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hoped, while reading this collection, for a wider range of themes and settings. But overall, a well-written and sharply observed set of stories that embrace the way that the world and our handling of human interaction and relationships within it, has changed. We are free to travel, to love, to love multiple people, to create art and life and home in ways we haven’t been before, but that freedom has yet to shelter us from the realities of loneliness, of feeling displaced, of not knowing if we’re better off running away from everyone and everything, dwelling on an island instead, alone.

[Eliezer Teitlebaum · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was so bad. I was honestly so confused reading it. There was so much unnecessary racism. Many of the story's just didn't make sense in the way that the characters interacted with each other. I hated the reading experience.

[leigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

absolutely gorgeous and thought-provoking collection of stories. while every story contained something to appreciate, my favourites were Maria of the Grapes, The Wolf, and The Pike.

[Audrey Hunter · Rating 3 out of 5]

i think plays are jen's calling. but pretty good

[Catie · Rating 5 out of 5]

And while the city beat time all around me like a vast heart, I told myself the beginning of a story: Once upon a time there were two runaways in a jungle—neon tigers all around, so beautiful, every sharp tooth another TV screen, fluorescent tongues, grapes for the plucking, fat bunches of grapes for the bold, a night without darkness, a fall without end. [from "Maria of the Grapes"]

A gorgeous collection of loosely-connected short stories. The protagonists (nearly all young women) are people adrift, most of them in cities that are somehow foreign to them. A bored, married white woman in Manhattan begins to write a novel about her new hook-up’s Venezuelan childhood—without his permission or input. A twenty-something in Brooklyn suffers through her boyfriend's performance art. A nice professor in Iowa City decides to become a bad person—but only when she’s sleeping with her TA. A Russian factory worker in Japan frets about her best friend and lover, who is also the kept girlfriend of a member of the yakuza. A recent college graduate in New York works for a scattered, eccentric rich woman (for no money) and harbors a crush on her boss's probably-straight assistant. Background characters reappear, often years later and at different stages of their lives. This lends the collection a lovely sort of mid-aughts indie movie feel (everything is connected, even if only by a wispy thread).

As with most short story collections, not every piece will land for every reader. I lost interest in "Mamushi," but found every other story compelling. I enjoyed these stories so much that, on release day, having already read the egalley, I bought the audiobook and listened the the entire collection over the course of two days. I'm not usually a re-reader, but I know I will revisit these.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for providing me with an egalley in exchange for my honest review.

[Jordan Stivers · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Island Dwellers is a fascinating collection of loosely-related stories set in the US and Japan. The tone of each is interesting: the bright, garish lights of Tokyo and NYC flicker against the shadows within each of the characters. The darkness is a comforting place for many of them and Silverman does a fantastic job painting each unique narrator while giving us a picture of the world around them.

Even as some of the characters inhabit the same neighborhoods, they each see something different. Basing the collection within certain physical locations gives a holistic view many short story collections lack and finding Easter eggs related to previous parts in later stories is a delight as a reader. It's those connections which keep the collection moving along and the increasing complexity shows us the world Silverman has created within our own.

My favorite pieces included the following: "Pretoria" (heartbreaking), "Maria of the Grapes" (beautiful and my favorite of the entire collection), "White People" (hilarious social commentary), and "The Wolf" (quirky and oddly sweet). Probably the strangest thing about this book is the beginning and ending stories. Usually you try to hit a high note in both but I think the first and last stories were the weakest two by far. However, you're rewarded for your patience with "Pretoria" as the second story so it's worth it.

Note: I received a free Kindle edition of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I would like to thank NetGalley, the publisher Random House, and the author Jen Silverman for the opportunity to do so.

[Gloria · Rating 2 out of 5]

Man, when I saw it said this was for readers of Miranda July and Rebecca Lee, I was like, "Ooh! Must try this."..I was disappointed. Mostly I hate that many of the protagonists are all so troubled, messed up, and.. kind of cliche. Ooh a damaged young person with low self-esteem, wow there's something new..many of the stories are dreamy and full of stuff that doesn't seem much like it'd happen in any real world.. One story especially bothered me, because the idea of a story where the narrator intersperses bits of information about a historical or literary figure from the past, like paralleling their own story, is SO DONE. I've read that so many times! Ugggh. Like, a paragraph or two of the narrator's experience, then suddenly a paragraph all about the other person.. Ugh. Also, the fact that the author refers to herself in the acknowledgments as a person who "builds worlds" really rubbed me the wrong way. No, you build ridiculous cheesy dream worlds full of unhappy young people who hate themselves and wander around Japan messing up their lives. Ugh. The exception was a story I think was called "White People". It was clever and a bit satiric and really nothing like all the other stories. I'd have loved a collection from the author who wrote that. Not all the other stories.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this book as a Goodreads giveaway. I really enjoy short stories and I figured let’s give it a chance!

First heads up: this book has a lot of profanity and sexual situations, this was not a problem for me, but I know this book won’t be for everyone.

This was not the genre of book I’d typically read. The characters all live in Japan or the United States and go through a variety of life situations involving love and friendship. The majority of stories feature feminist and/or LGBT characteristics. Some of the characters in the stories overlap.

I will say the first story was not really my favorite, but I’m glad I kept reading. Although this really isn’t a genre I’d usually read or even thought I would be interested in, I found myself intrigued by each story and kept wanting to read more. Some stories were a bit weird for me, some were a bit confusing (Japanese words are used a lot, but explained), but all made me think about things a little differently.

I would recommend if you like short stories and are open to something a bit different.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed Jen Silverman's short story collection The Island Dwellers. Though many times, I feel that collections of short stories can have a tendency to feel unfinished, or experimental, Silverman's stories are rock solid. Additionally, her dialogue is superb, likely a consequence of her experience as a playwright. The characters and stories are compelling, and I enjoyed uncovering all of the loose threads that tie the pieces together.

All in all, I thought this was a great collection with a few stand-out pieces. I'll definitely be keeping my eye out for more from Jen Silverman in the future!

FULL DISCLOSURE: I received an ARC from Random House in exchange for an honest review.

[michael adelman · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the Edge


I think of these stories as well written, edgy, sexy, sexually ambiguous and very touching. Definitely worth the journey.. Leaving and being unable to leaving are ongoing themes. Cruelty and I fidelity are also important themes. Many of the stories are seen through the eyes of someone who feels weaker, less together than another person. One of my favorites "Girl Canadian Shipwreck" has a chilling story within the story -- veryeffective. Silverman is fascinated with S-M and the story "A Great History of American Mistakes" shows both her fascination and disdain for cruel sexual behavior. If I have one reservation it's that no one story comes across as an unforgettable gem. Nevertheless, these stories are captivating and worth the time.

[Steve Sokol · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite kind of book, a unique collection of short stories of significant cultural and personal insights while being funny in a way that only real truth can be. Interestingly, half the stories are set in New York City, the other half involve foreigners in Japan.

To me, the theme of the whole book is about trying to be a good person in a confusing world. This is epitomized in the first three stories Girl Canadian Shipwreck, Pretoria, and A Great History of American Mistakes. I especially liked the story within a story element in the inaugural composition. I also really enjoyed this unique description of Hell:

And, what’s more, I know what Dante once knew: Hell consists of many rings. The outer rings are things like the Subway, Times Square, Brokers’ Fees. The inner ones are things like Taxes, Grant Applications, Performance Art. Once you get past those, there is only one ring left, the innermost ring of Hell. And that ring is not this basement. That ring is what happens after this basement. That ring is the space of deceit and guilt that will be created the moment Camilo stops waving his arms. That ring is the thing that lies just ahead.

I’d argue the best story (most unique, most insightful, most emotionally compelling) was Maria of the Grapes, which covered a lot of the same ground as its predecessors but with greater urgency and appeal.

My two favorite stories were the lightest/funniest while maintaining a keen eye on the foibles of contemporary life, especially for those of us striving to be good. These would be White People and Surveillance. Surveillance was so funny that I laughed out loud and then read it aloud to my wife and daughter. For the record, my 15-year-old daughter agreed that it was hilarious. My wife found it sad—and maybe a look at what I could be without an understanding partner. Life most fiction, I’d posit that this may be true but is surely exaggerated.

The Safest Place in the World differs from the other stories in that it is more about the invisible people on the edges of society. Their vulnerability is artfully described and captured in a way I have not encountered before.

Maureen is also a bit of an outlier, despite playing the same field (New York, youth, idealism/reality). This exploration of being a powerless employee (or almost employee) is a surprisingly universal feeling.

My least favorite story was The Wolf, which was only weak compared to its formidable rivals. However, while the whole book contains masterful prose (a hallmark of the best collections of the short form), here was the author’s very best work, a description of homesickness:

If I’d had the words, I would have said that it wasn’t about missing another place, so much as no longer being able to extricate myself from this one. How your shape changes, here. How the language changes and the silence changes too, there’s so much more of it, and if both the words and the space around them are different, then after some time, you become different too. And after enough time has passed, you can’t remember a way back to your old life—and if you did, if you somehow did make it back, you wouldn’t even fit there anymore.

Pike is probably the most traditional of the collection. It’s a fitting conclusion, as though the earlier stories are distilled to a timeless analysis of the human condition, wants/needs, and motivations. I feel like the overall message includes the law of attraction, although I’m not sure that’s what the author intends.

[Kathleen Gullion · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m a young lesbian who writes and used to be an actor - this book should have appealed to me yeah?? But, blah... not so much. Silverman writes comedy well. I laughed out loud at her observations about art and performance. My favorite stories were the ones where she let things get weird, where she pushed reality a little bit - those felt thrilling. But some of the more “serious” stories were both melodramatic and uninteresting, somehow, and the characters within them felt almost stock, flat. “Mamushi” read like bad fan fiction. “The Pike” hit you over the head with its simplistic metaphor. I wanted more witty observations, more insights, more emotions, more... something. Overall, I felt dissatisfied, even though I did genuinely enjoy a few of these. Favorites were: Girl Canadian Shipwreck, White People, Maureen, A Great History of American Mistakes.

[Miki · Rating 2 out of 5]

At first I hated this book. I didn't think I'd even make it through. A collection of short stories, I don't think I am the target audience for this collection (A conservative 40 something woman). That being said there were three redeeming stories for me at the end Surveillance, The Wolf, and The Pike. I enjoyed those but I had to go through the entire book before I got to these three little treasures. I most identified with Surveillance (I realize what my hypochondria actually looks like to an outsider).
The rest of the stories explored themes I couldn't relate to, that I didn't understand, that left me feeling dumb that I didn't get an underlying meaning.
Younger audiences may love this one. Those who can delve deep and have the time to flesh out deeper meanings would probably love this one. It just wasn't for me.

[aameils · Rating 3 out of 5]

Each of these stories were odd but intriguing. Some I definitely enjoyed more than others but as a whole I felt this book was a bit cold. Everything had a tinge of sadness and I was getting a bit tired of it after a while, I just didn't want to feel the loneliness of the characters anymore.

The Wolf was a favourite of mine, it was quirky and heartwarming enough to round out the book near the end. White People was also pretty entertaining. I hated the main character with a passion but she was a joy to dislike.

In general, I find story collections difficult to rate or review as I very easily forget the characters. With some characters gently overlapping, I found myself extra confused as to who was who, but luckily it didn't matter too much.

[Marybeth Taranow · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my first book of short stories that I have read in a really long time. They are not usually my preferred genre, but I thought it was time I try them again.
I really enjoyed this collection. Most of these stories are about young adults trying to figure out life. They take place in mostly Tokyo and New York with a few in the Midwest. Same characters pop up in different stories not really tied in to the previous story, but in a story of their own or a major part. These read easily and I enjoyed the settings. I give this a 3.5. Thank you NetGalley for the book in exchange for an honest opinion.

[Tavis · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Jen Silverman’s short story collection, The Island Dwellers, follows her characters’ lives with pinpoint precision. Mainly set in New York and Tokyo, Silverman explores themes of loneliness, survival, and obsession. Her Tokyo stories stand out to me personally because they center around ex-pat life in Japan. I felt she did a good job of touching upon the privilege that comes with being an English-speaking (and also white) foreigner in the context of Japan specifically. Definitely give this a try if you like stories of bitter and tender longing and a diverse set of characters. My favorites were “Pretoria,” “White People,” and “Mamushi.”

[Bad Penny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disclosure/disclaimer: I won this in a Goodreads Giveaway.

These are the kind of short stories I really like. Brief snapshots, glances into a slice of flawed and troubled lives, with complex and uncommon characters. Unsettling and uncomfortable at times, but you keep coming back in a both voyeuristic and self-reflective way. I enjoyed the linkages between stories, and the dialogue was strong (not forced or stilted). I found it easy to escape into this book, but also connect to parts of myself; I could find ways to relate to the characters.

[Melissa Dee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jen Silverman's stories of foreigners in island cities and countries are haunting. She elegantly contrasts the earthiness of South African, Columbia, America against the cleanness and safety of Japan, and finds both the Japanese and foreigners as distant as they were in the time of Perry and the Shogun.

The Wolf was one of the strangest and funniest stories I’ve read — A dead body goes on a first date.

In the recycling of her characters from story to story, Silverman makes us feel we are part of their larger community, and part of their obsessions with each other.