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Improvement
One of our most gifted writers of fiction returns with a bold and piercing novel about a young single mother living in New York, her eccentric aunt, and the decisions they make that have unexpected implications for the world around them.
Reyna knows her relationship with Boyd isn’t perfect, yet as she visits him throughout his three-month stint at Rikers Island, their bond grows tighter. Kiki, now settled in the East Village 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 honorable Boyd is pulling Reyna into a cigarette smuggling scheme, across state lines, where he could risk violating 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, as colorful as the tattoos decorating Reyna’s body, with narrative twists and turns as surprising and unexpected as the lives all around us.
Reyna knows her relationship with Boyd isn’t perfect, yet as she visits him throughout his three-month stint at Rikers Island, their bond grows tighter. Kiki, now settled in the East Village 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 honorable Boyd is pulling Reyna into a cigarette smuggling scheme, across state lines, where he could risk violating 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, as colorful as the tattoos decorating Reyna’s body, with narrative twists and turns as surprising and unexpected as the lives all around us.
240 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2017
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10577 people want to read
About the author
Joan Silber
25 books338 followersJoan Silber is the author of nine books of fiction. Her book Improvement was the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award and was listed as one of the year's best books by The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Newsday, The Seattle Times, and Kirkus Reviews. She lives in New York and teaches in the Warren Wilson MFA Program. Keep up with Joan at joansilber.net.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 830 reviews
March 13, 2021
Improvement?
That's the title of this book??
How horrible, inaccurate and uninteresting.
If the author, Joan Silber, and/or anyone at her publishing house ever want to know what the title should have been, when this book came out in 2017, I've decided it for them: Touchpoints or Tapestries.
The running metaphor throughout the novel is Turkish rugs that are woven, representing the stories that are interconnected and interlaced throughout time, cultures, and countries. When the rugs are passed into different hands, the narrative switches over to a different story. It doesn't have a damn thing to do with improvement. (She grumbles, then rips off a nail with her teeth).
This novel is a modern one, set primarily in New York, Istanbul and Berlin. The storytelling is strong and the beginning pulled me right in (the first chapter originally appeared as a stand-alone story and was included in The Best American Short Stories 2015).
For most normal people, this would likely be a 4 or 5 star read, and it is incredibly readable, but I had one significant issue here: the last time I read Ms. Silber's work, it was her 1976 novel, Household Words, and damn it if that novel didn't kick my ass, slap my face silly, and make me think about it like a lost appendage, when I was done.
This just didn't quite compare for me. (Plus, that dumb title. Sigh).
But you probably haven't read Household Words, so you might think this is a solid story with well-formed characters, an intriguing structure, and a little romance. . . and you'd be absolutely right.
It's better than, like. . . 90% of the garbage that I see people reading on airplanes (So judgy!), but I've been ruined. By Joan Silber herself!
I'm too biased to review this. I'm giving it four stars and going to bed.
That's the title of this book??
How horrible, inaccurate and uninteresting.
If the author, Joan Silber, and/or anyone at her publishing house ever want to know what the title should have been, when this book came out in 2017, I've decided it for them: Touchpoints or Tapestries.
The running metaphor throughout the novel is Turkish rugs that are woven, representing the stories that are interconnected and interlaced throughout time, cultures, and countries. When the rugs are passed into different hands, the narrative switches over to a different story. It doesn't have a damn thing to do with improvement. (She grumbles, then rips off a nail with her teeth).
This novel is a modern one, set primarily in New York, Istanbul and Berlin. The storytelling is strong and the beginning pulled me right in (the first chapter originally appeared as a stand-alone story and was included in The Best American Short Stories 2015).
For most normal people, this would likely be a 4 or 5 star read, and it is incredibly readable, but I had one significant issue here: the last time I read Ms. Silber's work, it was her 1976 novel, Household Words, and damn it if that novel didn't kick my ass, slap my face silly, and make me think about it like a lost appendage, when I was done.
This just didn't quite compare for me. (Plus, that dumb title. Sigh).
But you probably haven't read Household Words, so you might think this is a solid story with well-formed characters, an intriguing structure, and a little romance. . . and you'd be absolutely right.
It's better than, like. . . 90% of the garbage that I see people reading on airplanes (So judgy!), but I've been ruined. By Joan Silber herself!
I'm too biased to review this. I'm giving it four stars and going to bed.
December 11, 2017
The butterfly effect ably displayed in literary form. We start with an aunt, KiKi, who has had a varied life, but is now living fairly close to her neice, Reyna. Reyna has a young son, but visits her boyfriend who is serving a short term at Rikers. When he gets out, he and his friends, hatch a money making scheme, which if discovered could carry serious penalties. Reyna, in a moment of weakness, makes a decision that she later rescinds. This would have a snowball effect on many lives.
A decision made by one, leads to a decision by another, and that decision another, and so on and so on. It was extremely interesting to see how these people, and others besides are affected by one decision. Never really thought of it before, but probably should have. While I didn't particularly like, nor dislike any of these characters, I was very caught up in where this was going, how it would end. Decisions we make have consequences, many times outside of our view. Quite interesting to think about, and of course to read about.
Very well written, maybe a cautionary tale for our lives as we live them. Definitely s novel that makes one think. I love the connections here, and found this to be truly novel read.
A decision made by one, leads to a decision by another, and that decision another, and so on and so on. It was extremely interesting to see how these people, and others besides are affected by one decision. Never really thought of it before, but probably should have. While I didn't particularly like, nor dislike any of these characters, I was very caught up in where this was going, how it would end. Decisions we make have consequences, many times outside of our view. Quite interesting to think about, and of course to read about.
Very well written, maybe a cautionary tale for our lives as we live them. Definitely s novel that makes one think. I love the connections here, and found this to be truly novel read.
May 1, 2018
I knew nothing about this 72 year ‘stunning-attractive’ author until “Improvement”. I’m not even sure what drew me to it. The library had it readily available as an e-book on my OverDrive. I downloaded it and started reading with zero information just because something about the title and internet book cover caught my attention.
I’m loving the easy connection to our libraries more and more.
There are six narrators making this book feel like a cross between a novel and linked stories. The last time I remember reading this style was in “The Wonder Garden”, by Lauren Acampora...( one of my favorite books, still today).
After finishing this book, — where I felt the dialogue was often intriguing and funny....
where characters were criminals- cheaters - con artists - shallow- quirky ....and all attempting to ‘improve’ their lives.....
I wanted to know more about Joan Silber - the author! I didn’t even know that this book won so many awards.....and that Joan Silber ‘was’ 72 years until after reading this book. I knew nothing about her
How did I miss that last year in 2017, she won The National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction for THIS BOOK: “Improvement”?
So....I visited Wikipedia and read about her. She taught at Sarah Lawrence College.
She has published six novels and two collection of short stories.
I loved the story of Kiki, single mom, ....the hippie 60’s chick, and Reyna, Boyd, and Oliver. Reyna is the aunt—-their relationships and disagreements are complicated and compounded with smuggling. Try fitting a square peg into a round hole. They
just don’t fit......
.......well there is an attempt to make things- fit —things that went bad - to make them better. And.....in a way....things do improve....but not without repercussions.
I came across a wonderful endorsement for this book written by Ruth Franklin from the New York Times that I thought was so beautifully expressed and fit my experience .... ( only I could never have written anything so eloquently).....
that I want to share it:
“Her work generates tension and momentum from the ebbs and flows of individual lives, but also from the unexpected and sometimes unexplained links between them...like the Turkish carpet that drives much of the book’s action,
“Improvement”, repeats shapes and motifs, layering them in an intricate pattern that builds into something far more complex than the sum of its parts...Her technique of shifting viewpoints from one chapter to the next highlights not only the way a single dramatic event can ripple outward into ever-expanding circles, but also has a movement that is incidental for one person can be decisive for another...Part of Silber’s gift is knowing which stories not to tell. Her prose is spare, devoid of flourishes and extraneous information...It is both tragic and infuriating that a writer [like Joan] as innovative, humane, and wise is not read more wildly”.
Well.... I just learn of Joan Silber....and would love to read more. I agree with Ruth Franklin!
I’m loving the easy connection to our libraries more and more.
There are six narrators making this book feel like a cross between a novel and linked stories. The last time I remember reading this style was in “The Wonder Garden”, by Lauren Acampora...( one of my favorite books, still today).
After finishing this book, — where I felt the dialogue was often intriguing and funny....
where characters were criminals- cheaters - con artists - shallow- quirky ....and all attempting to ‘improve’ their lives.....
I wanted to know more about Joan Silber - the author! I didn’t even know that this book won so many awards.....and that Joan Silber ‘was’ 72 years until after reading this book. I knew nothing about her
How did I miss that last year in 2017, she won The National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction for THIS BOOK: “Improvement”?
So....I visited Wikipedia and read about her. She taught at Sarah Lawrence College.
She has published six novels and two collection of short stories.
I loved the story of Kiki, single mom, ....the hippie 60’s chick, and Reyna, Boyd, and Oliver. Reyna is the aunt—-their relationships and disagreements are complicated and compounded with smuggling. Try fitting a square peg into a round hole. They
just don’t fit......
.......well there is an attempt to make things- fit —things that went bad - to make them better. And.....in a way....things do improve....but not without repercussions.
I came across a wonderful endorsement for this book written by Ruth Franklin from the New York Times that I thought was so beautifully expressed and fit my experience .... ( only I could never have written anything so eloquently).....
that I want to share it:
“Her work generates tension and momentum from the ebbs and flows of individual lives, but also from the unexpected and sometimes unexplained links between them...like the Turkish carpet that drives much of the book’s action,
“Improvement”, repeats shapes and motifs, layering them in an intricate pattern that builds into something far more complex than the sum of its parts...Her technique of shifting viewpoints from one chapter to the next highlights not only the way a single dramatic event can ripple outward into ever-expanding circles, but also has a movement that is incidental for one person can be decisive for another...Part of Silber’s gift is knowing which stories not to tell. Her prose is spare, devoid of flourishes and extraneous information...It is both tragic and infuriating that a writer [like Joan] as innovative, humane, and wise is not read more wildly”.
Well.... I just learn of Joan Silber....and would love to read more. I agree with Ruth Franklin!
February 21, 2018
This is my first novel by noted author Joan Silber and I was immediately consumed by her easy, natural writing style and the theme--that of the butterfly effect--is one that I am often drawn to in literature. In this novel, the effect of one person’s choice affects what happens to another which leaves yet a third with questions and another grappling with the aftermath. I’m being intentionally vague as the concept is what gives this novel its significance and it is best left for the reader to discover.
I appreciated how Silber structured her story, the way the book was divided by first and third person narratives, particularly how the middle portion diverged in tone from the bookended. This deviation provided rich background to the central characters and filled in the gaps and, in so doing, projected another picture when we return to the first person narrative. And yet, I was left wanting.
Perhaps Silber’s nuanced approach to the concept was too subtle for me or it may have been that I felt an apartness from the characters, never wholly inhabiting their world or as has happened so often lately, my expectations were too high, but I turned the last page and thought, huh. The critics love this and my author/girl crush Ann Patchett exalted it, so don’t let my three paltry stars dissuade you. I liked this, rather than loved, but it was a worthwhile read and I was happy to have finally read something from this critically-acclaimed author.
I appreciated how Silber structured her story, the way the book was divided by first and third person narratives, particularly how the middle portion diverged in tone from the bookended. This deviation provided rich background to the central characters and filled in the gaps and, in so doing, projected another picture when we return to the first person narrative. And yet, I was left wanting.
Perhaps Silber’s nuanced approach to the concept was too subtle for me or it may have been that I felt an apartness from the characters, never wholly inhabiting their world or as has happened so often lately, my expectations were too high, but I turned the last page and thought, huh. The critics love this and my author/girl crush Ann Patchett exalted it, so don’t let my three paltry stars dissuade you. I liked this, rather than loved, but it was a worthwhile read and I was happy to have finally read something from this critically-acclaimed author.
October 29, 2019
Like the other of her books I read, Ideas of Heaven, Improvement is a set of interconnected stories. As the title suggests all the characters are striving to improve their lives - as a theme not perhaps terribly ambitious as who isn't trying to do that?! Joan Silber for me is a very accomplished writer who I'm always happy to read. She has lots of interest to say about daily life. These stories are set around the world - New York, Turkey, Berlin - and involve people of different races. The real test of this book though was how it was going to be wrapped up, how all the stories were going to mesh into one illuminating vision. The last story should have provided an epiphany instead it was a lame, rather cheesy closure. The wow factor simply wasn't there for me.
April 13, 2019
“Improvement” is a novel constructed as a series of interrelated vignettes. The first story arc revolves around Reyna, a young single mother who has a penchant for making poor life choices. Reyna is currently involved with a young man on probation from Rikers in New York. He and his buddies hatch a scheme to smuggle cigarettes from Virginia into New York and Reyna is reluctantly pulled into their plans. She ultimately makes a decision that has unintended consequences, altering lives and relationship forever.
I was very taken with Reyna’s story and her narrative voice. She wasn’t exactly unlikeable but she was flawed, blunt and defensive. The first part of the novel was her story. Part 2 consisted of alternating chapters about different characters who are in some way tied to Reyna - her eccentric and wise aunt Kiki, her aunt’s acquaintances, and the people impacted by Reyna’s fateful decision. Part 3 returns to Reyna’s narrative.
I liked Part 1 very much. I was disappointed to lose Reyna’s compelling voice; I felt like Silber had pulled a “bait and switch” on me. The other character stories were interesting but none had the pull of Reyna. The last part, which returns to Reyna, was too little too late and didn’t seem very plausible.
Silber writes well, and I did like this but ultimately didn’t love it. It’s a 3.5 but I am rounding down because the character mash-ups didn’t work well for me. I wanted more Reyna and more Kiki, less of everyone else.
I was very taken with Reyna’s story and her narrative voice. She wasn’t exactly unlikeable but she was flawed, blunt and defensive. The first part of the novel was her story. Part 2 consisted of alternating chapters about different characters who are in some way tied to Reyna - her eccentric and wise aunt Kiki, her aunt’s acquaintances, and the people impacted by Reyna’s fateful decision. Part 3 returns to Reyna’s narrative.
I liked Part 1 very much. I was disappointed to lose Reyna’s compelling voice; I felt like Silber had pulled a “bait and switch” on me. The other character stories were interesting but none had the pull of Reyna. The last part, which returns to Reyna, was too little too late and didn’t seem very plausible.
Silber writes well, and I did like this but ultimately didn’t love it. It’s a 3.5 but I am rounding down because the character mash-ups didn’t work well for me. I wanted more Reyna and more Kiki, less of everyone else.
July 24, 2017
In chaos theory, it is said that if a butterfly flutters its wings, a typhoon can ultimately occur halfway around the world. Put another way, even the smallest step changes lives immeasurably.
And so it is in this satisfying new novel by Joan Silber. Reyna is involved with a petty thief named Boyd, who is doing time at Rikers Island. He leaves the stint mostly unrepentant and soon enough, Reyna is drawn into his cigarette smuggling scheme. As the mother of a toddler, she backs away, setting in motion a chain of events that affects her life and the lives of those she knows—and doesn’t know.
Each chapter focuses on a different interrelated character and each is sublimely written. As a character-based reader, I felt the inhabitants of this book could have stepped off the pages. There is Kiki, Reyna’s aunt, whose adventurous spirit led her to Turkey and ultimately, to a greater understanding of what her essence craved. There’s Lynnette, the sister of one of Boyd’s conspirators, who loves her brother with a single-mindedness and believes in his promise that he will open an eyebrow salon for her. There’s Bruno, a young German adventurer, who travels to Turkey with his two friends to pilfer Turkish antiquities…and others. The beauty of Joan Silber’s writing is that I never felt uprooted in moving from one story to the next.
Improvement exquisitely explores the importance of connection, the possibility of redemption, and the power of love in an unpredictable world where small actions can have big consequences. Thanks to Counterpart for an advance reading copy.
And so it is in this satisfying new novel by Joan Silber. Reyna is involved with a petty thief named Boyd, who is doing time at Rikers Island. He leaves the stint mostly unrepentant and soon enough, Reyna is drawn into his cigarette smuggling scheme. As the mother of a toddler, she backs away, setting in motion a chain of events that affects her life and the lives of those she knows—and doesn’t know.
Each chapter focuses on a different interrelated character and each is sublimely written. As a character-based reader, I felt the inhabitants of this book could have stepped off the pages. There is Kiki, Reyna’s aunt, whose adventurous spirit led her to Turkey and ultimately, to a greater understanding of what her essence craved. There’s Lynnette, the sister of one of Boyd’s conspirators, who loves her brother with a single-mindedness and believes in his promise that he will open an eyebrow salon for her. There’s Bruno, a young German adventurer, who travels to Turkey with his two friends to pilfer Turkish antiquities…and others. The beauty of Joan Silber’s writing is that I never felt uprooted in moving from one story to the next.
Improvement exquisitely explores the importance of connection, the possibility of redemption, and the power of love in an unpredictable world where small actions can have big consequences. Thanks to Counterpart for an advance reading copy.
July 6, 2025
I really don't get all the hoopla about Silber, nor why this won the National Critic's Circle Award. I found the storyline (such as it is) boring, the characters unconvincing, the prose totally unremarkable, and there is also an unsettling subtle strain of racism/xenophobia (towards both African-Americans and Germans) here that I found disturbing.
There was really nothing new or innovative in the loosely connected interlinked stories format either. I almost abandoned it several times, and wish I had, as there wasn't anything very praiseworthy. It isn't AWFUL or totally unreadable - hence two stars rather than one, but I won't be reading anything else by her.
There was really nothing new or innovative in the loosely connected interlinked stories format either. I almost abandoned it several times, and wish I had, as there wasn't anything very praiseworthy. It isn't AWFUL or totally unreadable - hence two stars rather than one, but I won't be reading anything else by her.
December 9, 2020
Quietly, Silber unpeels the layers of her connected character’s lives. Unknowingly, their behaviors and decisions stimulate actions in this chain of people. From New York City’s Rikers jail, to Turkey, Germany, and Virginia, some people muddle through life, some have a clear vision and some have a spur of the moment reaction. It is a flowing, interconnected slice of life that produces contemplative narrative.
I’m not savvy enough to dissect this wonderful book and what makes it so great but I just had a terrific ride watching life unfold in this complicated everyday world of ours. Highly recommended for those that want to savor writing at its pinnacle.
I’m not savvy enough to dissect this wonderful book and what makes it so great but I just had a terrific ride watching life unfold in this complicated everyday world of ours. Highly recommended for those that want to savor writing at its pinnacle.
July 19, 2018
Connecting 1970s Turkey and New York today, 72 year old author Joan Silber, winner of the 2018 Pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction weaves a tapestry of interpersonal connections and shows how relationships bind us together and decisions have widespread impact across countries and over time in her latest novel, Improvement.
Reyna is a single mother living in Harlem and standing by her not so perfect boyfriend, Boyd, as she visits him during his 3 month incarceration at Riker’s. Her Aunt Kiki lives in the Village after spending some time in Turkey and traveling the world in her younger days. Kiki worries about Reyna and her young son Oliver and is unaware of the illegal activities Boyd, Reyna and their friends are involved with. When Reyna is asked to drive the car in a cigarette smuggling heist, she makes a crucial decision to remover herself from the dangerous antics and that sets off a series of events with a ripple effect that pervades countries and time, affecting people they know and strangers alike.
The book was written in three parts; a novel but with a feel of linked stories; parts 1 and 3 told in first person, and the middle was narrative necessary to fill in all the holes with description and stories of the past, colorfully adding to the context and connecting further the characters and situations. Joan Silber expertly intertwines the complexities of people’s lives as they each make decisions to try and improve their existence.
Very enjoyable read.
For all my reviews and recommendations please follow me on Book Nation by Jen.
Reyna is a single mother living in Harlem and standing by her not so perfect boyfriend, Boyd, as she visits him during his 3 month incarceration at Riker’s. Her Aunt Kiki lives in the Village after spending some time in Turkey and traveling the world in her younger days. Kiki worries about Reyna and her young son Oliver and is unaware of the illegal activities Boyd, Reyna and their friends are involved with. When Reyna is asked to drive the car in a cigarette smuggling heist, she makes a crucial decision to remover herself from the dangerous antics and that sets off a series of events with a ripple effect that pervades countries and time, affecting people they know and strangers alike.
The book was written in three parts; a novel but with a feel of linked stories; parts 1 and 3 told in first person, and the middle was narrative necessary to fill in all the holes with description and stories of the past, colorfully adding to the context and connecting further the characters and situations. Joan Silber expertly intertwines the complexities of people’s lives as they each make decisions to try and improve their existence.
Very enjoyable read.
For all my reviews and recommendations please follow me on Book Nation by Jen.
December 7, 2022
After finishing this I skimmed some reviews and found that it was frequently compared to the Islamic carpets that have a recurring place in the novel. Intricate interwoven themes, just as in the carpet patterns. Tapestry was another descriptor.
Both of those analogies seem too heavy to me. There is a certain light, shimmery quality to the prose. Gossamer is too fine, though. Think of braided strands of silver and gold.
In structure the book is like a series of interconnected stories, but the central core is actually more solid than that. Events radiate forward and backward in time from a decision made by a young woman to stop short of participating in her boyfriend’s harebrained get-rich (or at least less poor) scheme.
I was captivated by the first sentences, and I remained entranced until the end. Silber is a gifted author, and it’s easy to understand why the book won the National Book Critics Circle award and the Pen/Faulkner.
(P.S. I can’t seem to escape from references to Richmond VA in my reading. I expected it with Razorblade Tears, but who would have thought that a book set in Nova Scotia would have a Richmond connection? Then this book, which is set primarily in NYC and Turkey, with scenes in Germany and upstate NY, also features a lengthy segment in Richmond. Go figure.)
(P.P.S. Judith, I determined that I added this to my TBR the day after you posted your review - so thanks!)
Both of those analogies seem too heavy to me. There is a certain light, shimmery quality to the prose. Gossamer is too fine, though. Think of braided strands of silver and gold.
In structure the book is like a series of interconnected stories, but the central core is actually more solid than that. Events radiate forward and backward in time from a decision made by a young woman to stop short of participating in her boyfriend’s harebrained get-rich (or at least less poor) scheme.
I was captivated by the first sentences, and I remained entranced until the end. Silber is a gifted author, and it’s easy to understand why the book won the National Book Critics Circle award and the Pen/Faulkner.
(P.S. I can’t seem to escape from references to Richmond VA in my reading. I expected it with Razorblade Tears, but who would have thought that a book set in Nova Scotia would have a Richmond connection? Then this book, which is set primarily in NYC and Turkey, with scenes in Germany and upstate NY, also features a lengthy segment in Richmond. Go figure.)
(P.P.S. Judith, I determined that I added this to my TBR the day after you posted your review - so thanks!)
January 2, 2018
It’s a Connected World
I say all this because I don't know that I would have been so receptive to the subtle and often seemingly random things that Silber does in Improvement if I had not been sensitized by her previous collections. But it may well be the best of the three. She calls it a novel, perhaps because its focus is that much more concentrated: its main time-frame is New York City in 2012, with a number of flashbacks to Turkey in the 1970s, and all the major characters feature in more than one chapter. But it is still structured as a set of stories, much as the novels of Colum McCann or especially Elizabeth Strout tend to be. And they are all linked by a single moral theme: the "Improvement" of the title. But there is nothing whatsoever sappy about this; the upward trajectories are generally small, though of vital importance to the characters themselves.
Fools opened with a story about a modern saint, Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker movement. There is no such clear moral elevation here. Reyna, the narrator of the first two and last of the eight stories, is a single mother living with a young black man currently imprisoned on Riker's Island for dealing pot. When he gets out, his friends involve him in a scheme to smuggle cigarettes from Virginia to New York, an operation that threatens to involve Reyna herself. And indeed it does involve her, though not in the way you might think, and makes her feel guilty when it goes tragically wrong. This is all in the first two chapters. The next two are about two people only peripherally involved in the tragedy. A hospice worker and a truck driver, there is nothing especially remarkable, or even especially admirable, about their lives. But both are placed in situations where they have to make choices and, though difficult, those choices are the right ones.
The next three chapters develop the Turkish plot. Reyna has an aunt, Kiki, who scandalized her bourgeois Jewish family by going off to Turkey in the seventies, marrying a failed rug dealer, and going to live with him on a remote farm. This is mentioned at the very start of the book, but it is not until Chapter 5 that we hear the details. She too comes into contact with a group of amateur smugglers, three young Germans on the hunt for antiquities. The next two chapters then tell their stories, bringing the action forward by a generation and returning to New York. The final chapter joins all the stories together, filling in what happens with most of the major characters. It will involve one of the carpets that Kiki brought back from Turkey (hence the beautiful book cover), but what is really important about it is that it is Reyna's effort to set a bad situation right.
For all the clever connections between the stories, Silber does not make the mistake of engineering outcomes that are too pat. Most of the stories are open-ended, without punchlines—but they reflect the reality of life. And though the "improvements" are mostly small ones, they do exist, and they tie the separate stories together into a novel. I like Joan Silber's moral sense, and I like her underlying optimism. Which is enough to push a borderline rating up into the five-star category.
Darisse was secretly becoming more religious, but in private; she had her own rituals. She sat on her bed with her eyes closed; she thought of the walls of the room turning into air. Air from a larger space. The point was to ask for strength. Improvement wasn’t coming any other way. She was doing this almost every night and there was an aftereffect that pleased her.First, some background. I have been interested in Joan Silber ever since reading her Ideas of Heaven in 2006. Called a "Ring of Stories," each of the six longish stories in the collection links to its predecessor, and the last back to the first, though they span several centuries and three continents. The principal link, though, is the author's moral viewpoint, which I summarized in the title of my review, "Finding Grace Through Loss." Fools, the second collection of hers that I read, does not have the same linking device, though the stories overlap in subtle ways. They all have a 20th-century setting and involve Americans, and all explore the paradoxes inherent in the lives of people who—often despite themselves—find a faith or some way of doing good. As I wrote at the end of my review, "it is heartening to see people as ordinary and confused as the rest of us getting along as best they can, and somehow coming to their various understandings of what is truly important. And that is priceless."
I say all this because I don't know that I would have been so receptive to the subtle and often seemingly random things that Silber does in Improvement if I had not been sensitized by her previous collections. But it may well be the best of the three. She calls it a novel, perhaps because its focus is that much more concentrated: its main time-frame is New York City in 2012, with a number of flashbacks to Turkey in the 1970s, and all the major characters feature in more than one chapter. But it is still structured as a set of stories, much as the novels of Colum McCann or especially Elizabeth Strout tend to be. And they are all linked by a single moral theme: the "Improvement" of the title. But there is nothing whatsoever sappy about this; the upward trajectories are generally small, though of vital importance to the characters themselves.
Fools opened with a story about a modern saint, Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker movement. There is no such clear moral elevation here. Reyna, the narrator of the first two and last of the eight stories, is a single mother living with a young black man currently imprisoned on Riker's Island for dealing pot. When he gets out, his friends involve him in a scheme to smuggle cigarettes from Virginia to New York, an operation that threatens to involve Reyna herself. And indeed it does involve her, though not in the way you might think, and makes her feel guilty when it goes tragically wrong. This is all in the first two chapters. The next two are about two people only peripherally involved in the tragedy. A hospice worker and a truck driver, there is nothing especially remarkable, or even especially admirable, about their lives. But both are placed in situations where they have to make choices and, though difficult, those choices are the right ones.
The next three chapters develop the Turkish plot. Reyna has an aunt, Kiki, who scandalized her bourgeois Jewish family by going off to Turkey in the seventies, marrying a failed rug dealer, and going to live with him on a remote farm. This is mentioned at the very start of the book, but it is not until Chapter 5 that we hear the details. She too comes into contact with a group of amateur smugglers, three young Germans on the hunt for antiquities. The next two chapters then tell their stories, bringing the action forward by a generation and returning to New York. The final chapter joins all the stories together, filling in what happens with most of the major characters. It will involve one of the carpets that Kiki brought back from Turkey (hence the beautiful book cover), but what is really important about it is that it is Reyna's effort to set a bad situation right.
For all the clever connections between the stories, Silber does not make the mistake of engineering outcomes that are too pat. Most of the stories are open-ended, without punchlines—but they reflect the reality of life. And though the "improvements" are mostly small ones, they do exist, and they tie the separate stories together into a novel. I like Joan Silber's moral sense, and I like her underlying optimism. Which is enough to push a borderline rating up into the five-star category.
March 17, 2018
This book is awfully close to five stars for me. If you enjoy Elizabeth Strout's style, you should give IMPROVEMENT a try.
Silber takes the set of interconnected stories to a place I've never quite seen it taken before here, and the effect is rather breathtaking. Reyna is at the center of the book, a white single woman barely getting by living in an illegal lease and waiting for her boyfriend to get out of jail. Reyna is in her late 20's, working for low wages as an assistant in a veterinary clinic. She grew up middle class but isn't close to her family, except for her Aunt Kiki, an eccentric who is known in the family for marrying a man in Turkey and living with him on a farm for several years in her youth.
Reyna's story starts and ends the book. In between we move chapter by chapter to all kinds of different stories that are somehow connected to Reyna's. Each chapter exists in a different little world and has that perfect contained arc of an excellent short story. Through these stories we see themes return over and over again: class, financial instability, lovers coming together and falling apart. Each new story echoes back to others, giving them a deeper context. And when we finally come back to Reyna all kinds of little details that would not be of much notice become deep with meaning and a bigger picture of the world.
Silber's prose is straightforward and simple, while still bestowing insight and depth within her characters. From Turkey to Germany to Virginia to New York, each place fully exists in our minds.
This is a great one-sitting book (I read two chapters before bed then the entire rest of the book when I woke up) and a good pick for a book club. Silber doesn't hit you over the head with her themes and it's tempting to just call this a "butterfly effect" kind of book, but there's a lot here to sink your teeth into if you're willing to.
Silber takes the set of interconnected stories to a place I've never quite seen it taken before here, and the effect is rather breathtaking. Reyna is at the center of the book, a white single woman barely getting by living in an illegal lease and waiting for her boyfriend to get out of jail. Reyna is in her late 20's, working for low wages as an assistant in a veterinary clinic. She grew up middle class but isn't close to her family, except for her Aunt Kiki, an eccentric who is known in the family for marrying a man in Turkey and living with him on a farm for several years in her youth.
Reyna's story starts and ends the book. In between we move chapter by chapter to all kinds of different stories that are somehow connected to Reyna's. Each chapter exists in a different little world and has that perfect contained arc of an excellent short story. Through these stories we see themes return over and over again: class, financial instability, lovers coming together and falling apart. Each new story echoes back to others, giving them a deeper context. And when we finally come back to Reyna all kinds of little details that would not be of much notice become deep with meaning and a bigger picture of the world.
Silber's prose is straightforward and simple, while still bestowing insight and depth within her characters. From Turkey to Germany to Virginia to New York, each place fully exists in our minds.
This is a great one-sitting book (I read two chapters before bed then the entire rest of the book when I woke up) and a good pick for a book club. Silber doesn't hit you over the head with her themes and it's tempting to just call this a "butterfly effect" kind of book, but there's a lot here to sink your teeth into if you're willing to.
September 10, 2018
National Book Critic Circle Award 2017. Silber’s interconnected stories move like a river from one to the next. The novel begins with Reyna whose boyfriend ends up at Rikers Island for three months for selling 5 ounces of weed. She faithfully visits him every week. Her aunt Kiki supports Reyna’s decisions, but subtly questions Reyna’s trust in Boyd. Silber has the narrative river flow from Reyna to Kiki—who married a Turk and lived in Turkey for a number of years. This becomes pertinent when the reader finds out that Kiki met some German smugglers of Turkish artifacts while living there four decades ago. The Germans’ stories run parallel to Kiki’s, before intersecting with those in Harlem a generation later. Indeed, the threads of this novel eventually find their way back to Reyna in the end—but Reyna has changed—feeling it necessary to commit an act of unnecessary atonement. And like the Turkish rugs that Kiki loves, life’s beautiful tapestry is the result. Highly recommend.
January 17, 2018
I read this in a few hours but in the end I was like "huh?" I didn't get how the stories worked together or feel much. The voice keeps a distance. Yet the writing and voice are hypnotic.
November 7, 2017
IMPROVEMENT is a novel, mostly centered in New York, but also Berlin and Turkey, about people trying to improve their lives, despite the small or catastrophic tragedies that changed their position or outlook. The people in Silber’s cast are either related to each other by family; their circumstances; by a generation; or by several degrees of separation. In some instances, they are intimately associated with each other, or acquainted, but at times, it is only a casual or chance agency that is relevant. What IS relevant is that they are ordinary people, relatable, with baggage and common problems—money, relationships, insecurities—that make them so familiar and sympathetic.
Reyna and Boyd are a couple; she has a four-year-old, Oliver, from an ex no longer in their lives. Boyd is just out of Rikers for a minor criminal offense, and Reyna is concerned that Boyd wants to go into another life of petty crime with his cousin, Maxwell, and best friend, Claude. She’s not even sure that her and Boyd are meant to be forever. “I was perfectly aware that some part of my life with Boyd was not entirely real, that if you pushed it too hard a whole other feeling would show itself.”
Claude’s sister, Lynette, is an adversary of Reyna’s--they have a strained relationship due to Reyna’s suspicion that Lynette wants to hook up with him. Lynette is an aesthetician, talented in brow work, and wants to own her own salon one day. She is confident that she is capable of making it happen. “The point was to ask for strength. Improvement wasn’t coming any other way.”
One of her steady clients, Monika, a Berlin transplant to NYC, is an art historian for the Met, and married to a Jewish artist whose career is declining, which is putting a strain on their marriage. Julian has a tense relationship with Monika’s mother, who is ailing and living on the dole in Berlin. He still has assumptions that Germany is crawling with anti-Semitism, especially from Monika’s mother. So he resists the potential to start a career in Berlin, where the art community may be more receptive to his installations.
Long ago, unknown to Monika, her mother was a short-term dealer in antiquities, and had briefly met Kiki, Reyna’s aunt, in Istanbul. Aunt Kiki and her braided rugs are like the glue of the story. In some ways, Kiki is closer in degrees of separation to almost everyone, whose choices have a magnifying but subtle effect on the other characters’ personal histories.
Silber keeps the narrative focused on the quotidian, the day to day concerns and activities of her characters, and at times they are braided, like Kiki’s rugs, into a larger narrative or whole piece. Kiki was married in 1970 to a Turkish man and lived in Istanbul and in the countryside, at first helping her husband Osman, in rug trading, and then went with him when he went into farming. She returned, divorced, after eight years, and remains an enigmatic but supportive presence in Reyna’s life. Kiki has never remarried, and lives independently in the East Village.
There are others who populate the novel, some related by death, denial, tragedy or secret affairs. The connections—lost, found, fragile, refuted, or discarded, go back and forth in time and characters. What they held, and what held them. The mind—able to be two places at once—the truth and the lie, the past and the present. “A person could keep the best of certain private things to herself, so they didn’t fade, and she could lie flat-out…out of loyalty to once was. Nothing could get her to take back the lie; she was glad for what she held on to.”
There’s deliverance through the fog and cloud of precarious decisions, even a grand or noble gesture that change perspectives and lives, and allows us to look through the lens of ordinary people at the small but poignant gestures and bits of improvement that grant redemption.
Reyna and Boyd are a couple; she has a four-year-old, Oliver, from an ex no longer in their lives. Boyd is just out of Rikers for a minor criminal offense, and Reyna is concerned that Boyd wants to go into another life of petty crime with his cousin, Maxwell, and best friend, Claude. She’s not even sure that her and Boyd are meant to be forever. “I was perfectly aware that some part of my life with Boyd was not entirely real, that if you pushed it too hard a whole other feeling would show itself.”
Claude’s sister, Lynette, is an adversary of Reyna’s--they have a strained relationship due to Reyna’s suspicion that Lynette wants to hook up with him. Lynette is an aesthetician, talented in brow work, and wants to own her own salon one day. She is confident that she is capable of making it happen. “The point was to ask for strength. Improvement wasn’t coming any other way.”
One of her steady clients, Monika, a Berlin transplant to NYC, is an art historian for the Met, and married to a Jewish artist whose career is declining, which is putting a strain on their marriage. Julian has a tense relationship with Monika’s mother, who is ailing and living on the dole in Berlin. He still has assumptions that Germany is crawling with anti-Semitism, especially from Monika’s mother. So he resists the potential to start a career in Berlin, where the art community may be more receptive to his installations.
Long ago, unknown to Monika, her mother was a short-term dealer in antiquities, and had briefly met Kiki, Reyna’s aunt, in Istanbul. Aunt Kiki and her braided rugs are like the glue of the story. In some ways, Kiki is closer in degrees of separation to almost everyone, whose choices have a magnifying but subtle effect on the other characters’ personal histories.
Silber keeps the narrative focused on the quotidian, the day to day concerns and activities of her characters, and at times they are braided, like Kiki’s rugs, into a larger narrative or whole piece. Kiki was married in 1970 to a Turkish man and lived in Istanbul and in the countryside, at first helping her husband Osman, in rug trading, and then went with him when he went into farming. She returned, divorced, after eight years, and remains an enigmatic but supportive presence in Reyna’s life. Kiki has never remarried, and lives independently in the East Village.
There are others who populate the novel, some related by death, denial, tragedy or secret affairs. The connections—lost, found, fragile, refuted, or discarded, go back and forth in time and characters. What they held, and what held them. The mind—able to be two places at once—the truth and the lie, the past and the present. “A person could keep the best of certain private things to herself, so they didn’t fade, and she could lie flat-out…out of loyalty to once was. Nothing could get her to take back the lie; she was glad for what she held on to.”
There’s deliverance through the fog and cloud of precarious decisions, even a grand or noble gesture that change perspectives and lives, and allows us to look through the lens of ordinary people at the small but poignant gestures and bits of improvement that grant redemption.
July 11, 2022
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I really enjoyed Improvement by Joan Silber, because it was unlike any other book I have read. I fell in love with the characters in this novel.
Thank you to the teams at ReadersFirst and Allen & Unwin (Atlantic Books), for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Synopsis:
This is a story about a young single mother living in Harlem and her eccentric aunt. They end up making some decisions that have unexpected implications to the world around them.
Reyna doesn’t have a perfect relationship with Boyd. She is beside him while he is in prison for three months. Their relationship became even stronger.
Kiki, Reyna’s aunt settles nearby, after an adventurous journey in Turkey in her youth. She admires her niece, but she is worried about four-year old Olvier.
Little does Kiki know that Boyd is pulling Reyna into a smuggling scheme, violating his probation. When Reyna refuses to assist and takes a step back, her resistance sets a series of events that affect the lives of loved ones and strangers around them.
My Thoughts:
Improvement is a book that intrigued me a lot! And it’s one of those books where you can’t really discuss the plot in fear of spoiling things. I feel like mentioning any other characters apart from Kiki and Reyna is a spoiler. It’s definitely one of those books you just need to go in blind, and enjoy every minute of it.
“The point was to ask for strength. Improvement wasn’t coming any other way.”
The book starts with a little bit of Kiki’s story, and then Reyna and Boyd’s relationship. Then a plot twist changes everything, and we have other character’s points of views introduced.
Kiki’s stories and adventures in Turkey are so colourful. Her beloved rugs and her courage never seize to amaze me. Her travels and the people she met all taught her something. The choices she made shaped the Kiki we know and love today. The cool eccentric aunt, with many trinkets in her small and crowded place.
Reyna’s innocent, but not so innocent life is beautiful as well, and her character development is beyond amazing and admirable. I love how much she cares about everyone. She is trying to fix the world, even though sometimes, the world may not need her help.
Very beautiful and inspiring!
All the other characters that we get to know share a personal story, each of them carry a burden, share love and worries, and care about someone. And to each of them, something happened, to make them be at a certain place at a certain time, and become the people they became today.
The novel is so wonderfully thought out, and it’s amazing how Joan Silber managed to capture this. How one decision of one person can change the life of so many, without them even knowing it’s happening. Get your “what if” questions ready, because you will definitely be wondering after this book, and for each character.
Improvement is definitely a book you should pick up. It makes you learn so much, even when you’re not ready for it.
I really enjoyed Improvement by Joan Silber, because it was unlike any other book I have read. I fell in love with the characters in this novel.
Thank you to the teams at ReadersFirst and Allen & Unwin (Atlantic Books), for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Synopsis:
This is a story about a young single mother living in Harlem and her eccentric aunt. They end up making some decisions that have unexpected implications to the world around them.
Reyna doesn’t have a perfect relationship with Boyd. She is beside him while he is in prison for three months. Their relationship became even stronger.
Kiki, Reyna’s aunt settles nearby, after an adventurous journey in Turkey in her youth. She admires her niece, but she is worried about four-year old Olvier.
Little does Kiki know that Boyd is pulling Reyna into a smuggling scheme, violating his probation. When Reyna refuses to assist and takes a step back, her resistance sets a series of events that affect the lives of loved ones and strangers around them.
My Thoughts:
Improvement is a book that intrigued me a lot! And it’s one of those books where you can’t really discuss the plot in fear of spoiling things. I feel like mentioning any other characters apart from Kiki and Reyna is a spoiler. It’s definitely one of those books you just need to go in blind, and enjoy every minute of it.
“The point was to ask for strength. Improvement wasn’t coming any other way.”
The book starts with a little bit of Kiki’s story, and then Reyna and Boyd’s relationship. Then a plot twist changes everything, and we have other character’s points of views introduced.
Kiki’s stories and adventures in Turkey are so colourful. Her beloved rugs and her courage never seize to amaze me. Her travels and the people she met all taught her something. The choices she made shaped the Kiki we know and love today. The cool eccentric aunt, with many trinkets in her small and crowded place.
Reyna’s innocent, but not so innocent life is beautiful as well, and her character development is beyond amazing and admirable. I love how much she cares about everyone. She is trying to fix the world, even though sometimes, the world may not need her help.
Very beautiful and inspiring!
All the other characters that we get to know share a personal story, each of them carry a burden, share love and worries, and care about someone. And to each of them, something happened, to make them be at a certain place at a certain time, and become the people they became today.
The novel is so wonderfully thought out, and it’s amazing how Joan Silber managed to capture this. How one decision of one person can change the life of so many, without them even knowing it’s happening. Get your “what if” questions ready, because you will definitely be wondering after this book, and for each character.
Improvement is definitely a book you should pick up. It makes you learn so much, even when you’re not ready for it.
February 5, 2018
My first Joan Silber, an author unknown to me until the shortlisting of Improvement in this year’s (2018) National Book Critics Circle Award.
I enjoyed the read, the prose is easy, and this set of linked stories are relatively uncomplicated and gently revealed.
There are two clearly signposted themes in the stories. Firstly, that of the interconnectedness of life - the butterfly effect; secondly the endeavours we undertake to improve our lives, not least through our connection with lovers, who might even become life partners, husbands or wives.
When push comes to shove, we are on our own.
My somewhat lukewarm rating is a consequence of a flaw which, for me, compromised the overall consistency of the book.
Reyna is a pivotal character. Reyna’s recognisable, life dilemmas bookend the other stories in Improvement. But her relationship, and character juxtaposition with Lynnette, an integral part of the book, was one which I found totally unconvincing.
Improvement is good book to read as an interlude from reading more challenging subject matter, and/or literature written in a more experimental style.
There’s not a lot that’s especially edgy, and by and large things work out for the best.
I will read Silber again, I’m sure, but as an aside, I hope, next time, that the names she chooses for her characters are snappier and contemporary. Just about every character (Teddy, Bruno, Steffi, Oliver, Alan, Julian) didn’t seem to suit their name (is such a thing possible?), and seemed a bit dated!
I enjoyed the read, the prose is easy, and this set of linked stories are relatively uncomplicated and gently revealed.
There are two clearly signposted themes in the stories. Firstly, that of the interconnectedness of life - the butterfly effect; secondly the endeavours we undertake to improve our lives, not least through our connection with lovers, who might even become life partners, husbands or wives.
When push comes to shove, we are on our own.
My somewhat lukewarm rating is a consequence of a flaw which, for me, compromised the overall consistency of the book.
Reyna is a pivotal character. Reyna’s recognisable, life dilemmas bookend the other stories in Improvement. But her relationship, and character juxtaposition with Lynnette, an integral part of the book, was one which I found totally unconvincing.
Improvement is good book to read as an interlude from reading more challenging subject matter, and/or literature written in a more experimental style.
There’s not a lot that’s especially edgy, and by and large things work out for the best.
I will read Silber again, I’m sure, but as an aside, I hope, next time, that the names she chooses for her characters are snappier and contemporary. Just about every character (Teddy, Bruno, Steffi, Oliver, Alan, Julian) didn’t seem to suit their name (is such a thing possible?), and seemed a bit dated!
March 11, 2018
This is probably deserving of more stars, I liked the writing, but it should be called what it is, interrelated short stories. After getting involved with the original narrator and her hippy-ish aunt, they both disappear and I had to wade through a new bunch of characters instead, none of whom I was particularly interested in. (Which might not be their fault, just that I was annoyed at the unexpected turn) The originals do pop in again, but not in any significant way. I predict that I will forget about this book.
July 26, 2025
Life And Chance
Joan Silber's short critically-acclaimed novel "Improvement" (2017) is a story of people and of the frequently surprising consequences of their actions. The book is a tapestry, a metaphor used throughout, of different times and places, including New York City, Turkey, Germany, Virginia, and Philadelphia. The events in the story take place over a time frame of about forty years.
The novel is philosophical in tone. The title "Improvement" suggested to me the concept of meliorism, or working towards making things better, in the American pragmatism associated with William James and John Dewey. In facing difficult issues in life, people try to use their intelligence to find their way through a situation. They work to muddle through and make things better in specific cases as opposed to trying to reach an abstract goal of the good. So it is with the many characters in this book.
The book includes several sets of characters. The focus is on Reyana, a young, white, single mother in New York City and her boyfriend, Boyd, African American, who is serving a three month sentence at Rikers Island. When out of prison, Boyd works as a waiter in a small diner, but he has a larger vision. He develops a plan to sell cigarettes from Virginia in New York City to avoid the city cigarette tax. This scheme soon works to have unintended consequences, good and bad, for many others, including Reyana who declines to become involved.
The book moves quickly in short, spare, colloquial language with emphasis on the characters' hopes and dreams and, in particular, on their many sexual relationships. Silber offers a portrayal of African American street life. The characters are described in themselves and in their relationships to others, with the consequences of their actions sometimes forseeable and sometimes not.
The book is at its best in its early sections which develop the characters who appear throughout the work. As the story unfolds, it involves too many characters and loses something in focus. Among the characters are Reyana's aunt, Kiki, a former classics major who lived in Turkey and married a Turkish weaver of carpets. Kiki retains a love of reading and is devoted to Stoic philosophy. Other characters include Kiki's former husband a Turkish rug weaver, a long-distance trucker and his mistress, hospital and hospice workers, a young woman who works in an eyebrow bar, German smugglers of antiquities, an American sculptor whose career has turned flat, and many others. Although the book is too cluttered, the characters are engaging and individualized. It is valuable to see with the characters the effects of their actions and the many turns that life can take.
Many people will be reminded in reading this novel of unforeseen effects of their own actions upon others. This is an important aspect of life. The book illustrates both chance and connectedness, reminding me again of the melioristic nature of pragmatism discussed earlier. Readers, philosophically inclined or otherwise, will reflect in different ways on the respective roles of connection and chance in the concrete problems of life.
I thought of the current virus epidemic in reading this book as it showed, if a different sense, how lives may change and how people are bound to one another in frequently chance ways. The Rikers Island scenes reminded me of the criminal proceedings involving Harvey Weinstein and, again, of how life may change.. Other parts of the story brought to mind events in my own life.
This book is short and somewhat disjointed but rewards reading. It is particular to its characters and yet will speak more broadly to its readers.
Robin Friedman
Joan Silber's short critically-acclaimed novel "Improvement" (2017) is a story of people and of the frequently surprising consequences of their actions. The book is a tapestry, a metaphor used throughout, of different times and places, including New York City, Turkey, Germany, Virginia, and Philadelphia. The events in the story take place over a time frame of about forty years.
The novel is philosophical in tone. The title "Improvement" suggested to me the concept of meliorism, or working towards making things better, in the American pragmatism associated with William James and John Dewey. In facing difficult issues in life, people try to use their intelligence to find their way through a situation. They work to muddle through and make things better in specific cases as opposed to trying to reach an abstract goal of the good. So it is with the many characters in this book.
The book includes several sets of characters. The focus is on Reyana, a young, white, single mother in New York City and her boyfriend, Boyd, African American, who is serving a three month sentence at Rikers Island. When out of prison, Boyd works as a waiter in a small diner, but he has a larger vision. He develops a plan to sell cigarettes from Virginia in New York City to avoid the city cigarette tax. This scheme soon works to have unintended consequences, good and bad, for many others, including Reyana who declines to become involved.
The book moves quickly in short, spare, colloquial language with emphasis on the characters' hopes and dreams and, in particular, on their many sexual relationships. Silber offers a portrayal of African American street life. The characters are described in themselves and in their relationships to others, with the consequences of their actions sometimes forseeable and sometimes not.
The book is at its best in its early sections which develop the characters who appear throughout the work. As the story unfolds, it involves too many characters and loses something in focus. Among the characters are Reyana's aunt, Kiki, a former classics major who lived in Turkey and married a Turkish weaver of carpets. Kiki retains a love of reading and is devoted to Stoic philosophy. Other characters include Kiki's former husband a Turkish rug weaver, a long-distance trucker and his mistress, hospital and hospice workers, a young woman who works in an eyebrow bar, German smugglers of antiquities, an American sculptor whose career has turned flat, and many others. Although the book is too cluttered, the characters are engaging and individualized. It is valuable to see with the characters the effects of their actions and the many turns that life can take.
Many people will be reminded in reading this novel of unforeseen effects of their own actions upon others. This is an important aspect of life. The book illustrates both chance and connectedness, reminding me again of the melioristic nature of pragmatism discussed earlier. Readers, philosophically inclined or otherwise, will reflect in different ways on the respective roles of connection and chance in the concrete problems of life.
I thought of the current virus epidemic in reading this book as it showed, if a different sense, how lives may change and how people are bound to one another in frequently chance ways. The Rikers Island scenes reminded me of the criminal proceedings involving Harvey Weinstein and, again, of how life may change.. Other parts of the story brought to mind events in my own life.
This book is short and somewhat disjointed but rewards reading. It is particular to its characters and yet will speak more broadly to its readers.
Robin Friedman
December 29, 2017
Interlocking stories form the backbone of this novel (Silber has used a similar technique before in her collection of stories, Fools: Stories). The book consists of stories told by several very different people: Reyna, a single mother living in Harlem who is in love with a petty thief, her aunt who lives in the Village and who lived for a number of years in Turkey, the daughter of one of the women Kiki (the aunt) met in Turkey who is connected to the sister of a friend of the first story. The book begins and ends with Reyna's story which closely connects to the story of her boyfriend's friend's sister.
It sounds more complicated than it, in fact, is. The shifts in perspective are easy to follow and each story is both clear by itself and in relation to the others.
Silber is a wonderful writer: I have loved all of her books and always look forward to her next work. Her book on writing, The Art of Time in Fiction: As Long as It Takes is fascinating and all her fiction a delight. She seems equally at home in New York City (which she evokes vividly) as in farther flung places (in this case, Turkey and a short visit to Berlin). Her characters are realer than real; we know them in a way we rarely get to know actual people and are as interested in the unlikable characters as the likable ones. Her characters are complicated and even the ones we care most about often act in unlikable ways (just like the people we know).
Each of Silber's works is a gem. She is always a delight to read. This book is no exception.
It sounds more complicated than it, in fact, is. The shifts in perspective are easy to follow and each story is both clear by itself and in relation to the others.
Silber is a wonderful writer: I have loved all of her books and always look forward to her next work. Her book on writing, The Art of Time in Fiction: As Long as It Takes is fascinating and all her fiction a delight. She seems equally at home in New York City (which she evokes vividly) as in farther flung places (in this case, Turkey and a short visit to Berlin). Her characters are realer than real; we know them in a way we rarely get to know actual people and are as interested in the unlikable characters as the likable ones. Her characters are complicated and even the ones we care most about often act in unlikable ways (just like the people we know).
Each of Silber's works is a gem. She is always a delight to read. This book is no exception.
February 20, 2019
I’ve been thinking a lot about linked short story collections recently. I find them easier to read than the average short story volume because there are fewer characters and settings to keep track of, and you get the fun of tracing unexpected connections between characters. Improvement didn’t quite work for me in that way, mostly because you can tell that it started as one short story, “About My Aunt”: now the untitled first chapter, it is, as you might guess, a solid stand-alone narrative about Reyna and her aunt Kiki. It was originally published in Tin House and collected in The Best American Short Stories 2015.
I was most interested in Kiki, a terrific character with a completely unsuitable name. Her marriage to a Turk failed – but hey, at least she got a great rug out of it, as well as the fun but temporary challenge of third-world life. (“For a hardheaded person, she had let herself be flung about by the winds of love, and she wasn’t sorry either.”) Back in New York City she directs a house-cleaning agency and babysits for Reyna’s four-year-old son, Oliver. Tattooed Reyna’s African-American boyfriend, Boyd, is in prison for three months for selling pot; when he gets out he comes up with the bright idea of smuggling cigarettes between Virginia and New York to profit from the tax difference. He asks Reyna to make one of the pick-ups, but she chickens out at the last minute. Boyd’s friend Claude drives instead, and is killed instantly in a crash.
Part II reaches into the lives of some of the minor characters on the fringes: Claude; Teddy, the truck driver who was the other party in the car accident; Osman, Kiki’s ex-husband; a trio of Germans who passed through their Turkish town in the summer of 1977 with smuggled antiquities in their possession; and so on. For me, these narratives were too diffuse and didn’t hang together as a novel. I had hoped to enjoy this more since it won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and Silber is one of those writer’s writers you always hear about but never get to read. I found her voice similar to Anne Tyler’s or perhaps Julia Glass’s, but I’m not sure I’d try another book by her.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
I was most interested in Kiki, a terrific character with a completely unsuitable name. Her marriage to a Turk failed – but hey, at least she got a great rug out of it, as well as the fun but temporary challenge of third-world life. (“For a hardheaded person, she had let herself be flung about by the winds of love, and she wasn’t sorry either.”) Back in New York City she directs a house-cleaning agency and babysits for Reyna’s four-year-old son, Oliver. Tattooed Reyna’s African-American boyfriend, Boyd, is in prison for three months for selling pot; when he gets out he comes up with the bright idea of smuggling cigarettes between Virginia and New York to profit from the tax difference. He asks Reyna to make one of the pick-ups, but she chickens out at the last minute. Boyd’s friend Claude drives instead, and is killed instantly in a crash.
Part II reaches into the lives of some of the minor characters on the fringes: Claude; Teddy, the truck driver who was the other party in the car accident; Osman, Kiki’s ex-husband; a trio of Germans who passed through their Turkish town in the summer of 1977 with smuggled antiquities in their possession; and so on. For me, these narratives were too diffuse and didn’t hang together as a novel. I had hoped to enjoy this more since it won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and Silber is one of those writer’s writers you always hear about but never get to read. I found her voice similar to Anne Tyler’s or perhaps Julia Glass’s, but I’m not sure I’d try another book by her.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
November 23, 2022
I am the kind of person that wonders about many of the side characters in the books I read. If I am reading nonfiction it is the worst because I will start researching actual people not central to the story, tumbling down Google wormholes, realizing hours in that it is 2:00 am and that I have to work in a few hours. So this book's structure worked for me. There is a central event which impacts many people followed by vignettes featuring many of those minor characters who were affected. We see how their lived were changed by two decisions, each made in an instant one fateful night. I thought that this was very well done, and I found the featured side characters mostly fascinating. In fact the only character I did not find fascinating at all was the main character, Reyna, whose actions set off everything else. I don't think she was a badly drawn character. The character development throughout is excellent. I was impressed with how Silber could give me only tiny slivers of people's lives and yet I as a reader felt I really got to know them. Reyna was well drawn, that was not the issue. I see women like her all the time. The problem is that Reyna is basic. I lost a bit of interest when she was front and center, but she was so interconnected with everyone else that invariably she would start talking or thinking about other characters like Kiki, Lynette, or Boyd, and I would get interested again. In the end, reading this was a great pleasure. I will definitely move on to read other Joan Silber. .
April 27, 2020
It’s happened again, I’ve fallen in love with another author, which means more books to want to read. With this novel alone Silber will be one of the names I mention alongside the contemporary women writers I love, Anne Tyler, Elizabeth Strout, Deborah Eisenberg and Barbara Trapido. If you like any of these authors, I highly suggest adding Improvement to your TBR. This globetrotting short novel looks at the loves and struggles of several characters whose lives are connected in ways direct and incidental. It’s kind of like a series of linked short stories—in fact, the first chapter won an O. Henry prize and was included in the Best American Short Stories—but it is definitely not a story collection. It is capacious and complete as a whole. It won more prizes as a novel. The prose is sharp and snappy and seemingly effortless. She does have the story writer’s—and she is most highly acclaimed for her short stories—dedication to concision. The joy of this book is in the deft handling of its material and the distinct, soulful voices of its characters. I loved its heart, its measured calm, its modernity, maturity and humour. Silber used a lot of colours to make this thing, and the result is serenely awesome. It’s short. Just read it.
December 9, 2020
Between 3 and 4 stars, but I couldn’t quite stretch to 4. I enjoyed the snippets of intersecting lives, but overall is kind of average. Was a good diversion from more serious/challenging reads.
April 17, 2018
Improvement by Joan Silber has already won the Pen Faulkner Award for Fiction as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award and I can definitely see why. It is beautifully crafted without being overdone. The writing is crisp and clear, but never ordinary.
It is hard to give you a sense of the plot of Improvement without taking away its magic. Silber tells the story of a single mother, Reyna, who is visiting her boyfriend, Boyd, in prison. Once Boyd is released, he falls in with friends who are smuggling cigarettes across state lines. Reyna must choose whether to get involved or remain on the sidelines. Improvement is the story of her decision and how one choice ripples out to effect many lives.
If you are a fan of character studies, you will love this book. Reyna is one of the most three-dimensional characters I have ever read. Her faults are on full display and she is brutally honest. Although I wouldn’t call Reyna likable, I found myself identifying with her. Seeing your own flaws on the page staring back at you is a powerful experience.
Part two of the novel is a spiderweb of characters all interconnected through each other’s choices. I was absolutely enamored with this section and it is where the magic of Improvement happens. Silber is a master at getting inside a character’s head and, though we move quickly from person to person, you feel deeply about each new character.
Improvement is a novel about the choices we make and the roads not taken. It is a novel about regret and restitution. It is about the risks we take to improve our lot. But mostly, Improvement is about the faith and hope we put in new relationships. The spark of joy we feel when we meet someone new and begin to imagine a life with them.
I am so thankful to Counterpoitnt Press for sending me a copy to review. I might never have read it otherwise and I am so glad I did. Improvement is a beautifully woven spiderweb. A fast, easy read that still packs a punch.
It is hard to give you a sense of the plot of Improvement without taking away its magic. Silber tells the story of a single mother, Reyna, who is visiting her boyfriend, Boyd, in prison. Once Boyd is released, he falls in with friends who are smuggling cigarettes across state lines. Reyna must choose whether to get involved or remain on the sidelines. Improvement is the story of her decision and how one choice ripples out to effect many lives.
If you are a fan of character studies, you will love this book. Reyna is one of the most three-dimensional characters I have ever read. Her faults are on full display and she is brutally honest. Although I wouldn’t call Reyna likable, I found myself identifying with her. Seeing your own flaws on the page staring back at you is a powerful experience.
Part two of the novel is a spiderweb of characters all interconnected through each other’s choices. I was absolutely enamored with this section and it is where the magic of Improvement happens. Silber is a master at getting inside a character’s head and, though we move quickly from person to person, you feel deeply about each new character.
Improvement is a novel about the choices we make and the roads not taken. It is a novel about regret and restitution. It is about the risks we take to improve our lot. But mostly, Improvement is about the faith and hope we put in new relationships. The spark of joy we feel when we meet someone new and begin to imagine a life with them.
I am so thankful to Counterpoitnt Press for sending me a copy to review. I might never have read it otherwise and I am so glad I did. Improvement is a beautifully woven spiderweb. A fast, easy read that still packs a punch.
March 8, 2019
A delightful testimony to the circle of life and human connections the whole world over! Beautifully written, genuinely moving.
Joan Silber’s insightful and compact novel, Improvement, takes the form of a series of interconnected stories and examines how a decision in one characters life can go on to have such a consequential impact on that of another. Spanning the 1970s to 2012 and providing a snapshot of over a dozen characters the result is a rewarding and gently humorous ensemble of stories in which the ramifications of an external influence alter entire lives. Taking in a series of locations from the state of Virginia to the cities of Berlin and Istanbul, the stories are also connected by the wider theme of people attempting to improve their lot, be it in love or wealth, with each thread originating from an instance of smuggling, whether Turkish antiquities or American cigarettes.
The story opens with the first-person narrative of thirty-something Reyna, a white single mother with a four-year-old son, Oliver, living in Harlem with a fondness for meaningful tattoos and an African-American boyfriend, Boyd, who is serving a three month stint in Rikers Island for selling weed. In love with Boyd yet unsure of his own commitment and sincerity, Reyna’s three-hour round trips to visit him coincide with the return of her aunt Kiki to the East Village after eight years living in Turkey. As self-contained Kiki enters Reyna’s life both women come together as adults and Kiki gives her niece a genuine Turkish rug as well as a multitude of pearls of wisdom on the many phases of her life as she recalls men she has loved with a touching spirit of generosity. Despite alarm bells telling Reyna that standing by Boyd has the potential to backfire if his eye wanders or he is led into the criminal pursuits of his cousin and neighbourhood pals upon his release, she stays the course. As open minded Kiki interacts with Reyna’s life the narrative is also punctuated by insights into the decision Kiki made to initially stay in Turkey and throughout her lifetime to date which make her ripe for further exploration.
As Boyd’s release brings domestic bliss for Reyna, the criminal pursuits of his buddies, Claude, Wiley, and his cousin, Maxwell, threaten to land him in strife as they orchestrate a plan to smuggle cigarettes interstate from Richmond, Virginia to New York with the differing taxation rates as the profit. As the reader is drawn deeper into their lives this is woven between snippets of Reyna’s travails along with her discoveries and natural curiosity about her aunt’s colourful life. The novel goes on to capture the ripple effects when a car accident on one such smuggling trip in which Reyna reneges on her agreed involvement ends in tragedy and thereby impacts on an unfortunate long haul truck driver and Claude’s newly deserted love interest. As the repercussions shatter Reyna and Boyd’s fragile relationship and send Reyna into hiding from Claude’s vengeful sister, Lynnette, the consequences resound. Making apparent how a perturbation in one life miles away can have far-reaching effects on the lives of many others and introduce chaos into their own lives, Joan Silber’s novel provides a look at cause and consequence in everyday life.
Part II sees Reyna’s narrative give way to a series of chapters focusing on the characters whose lives and circumstances are altered by the tragedy of part I, along with Kiki’s many friends and those that are played a part in her life. Whilst some of these characters stories, such as Claude’s devastated new girl, Darise, who is left hanging and aged trucker, Teddy, whose livelihood is placed in jeopardy, are as involving and moving as Reyna and Kiki’s stories, others, such as the trio of German antiquities smugglers (Dieter, Bruno and Steffi) failed to hold the same interest for me. However despite this they are all woven together seamlessly and never feel out of place. As Part III opens with a return to Reyna’s first-person narrative it gives some closure to her residual guilt surrounding the tragic incident of Part I and the result is an opportunity to reflect on an big-hearted and insightful story full of understated life lessons.
Silber’s characters, whether likeable or not, leap from the page and she explores them in pared back and uncluttered prose yet manages to capture them perfectly, with even their dialogue ringing true. Everyone of her characters, not just lead protagonists Reyna and Kiki, leave a lasting impression and I was riveted by this study on the ebb and flow of lives all intrinsically connected by the idea of improvement and advancement be it in life, love or happiness. Although the novel may sound a deceptively simple composition, Silber’s brilliance is in making her characters each feel so integral to one another’s stories despite being significant in number and Improvement really is a human testimony to the butterfly effect.
A genuine pleasure to read with an understated premise that shows that geography barely matters, Improvement is a sublime look at cause and consequence in our everyday lives. However it is the compelling and credible voice of mixed-up Reyna, who at times demonstrates exceptional maturity to then stumble over the simplest mistake, and inspirational, freewheeling Kiki that hold the entire novel together and make it a success. On the strength of Silber’s prose alone, form her turns of phrase to her perceptive take on lives across races and cultures worldwide, I am very keen to read more of her work.
With thanks to Readers First who provided me with a free copy of this novel in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.
Joan Silber’s insightful and compact novel, Improvement, takes the form of a series of interconnected stories and examines how a decision in one characters life can go on to have such a consequential impact on that of another. Spanning the 1970s to 2012 and providing a snapshot of over a dozen characters the result is a rewarding and gently humorous ensemble of stories in which the ramifications of an external influence alter entire lives. Taking in a series of locations from the state of Virginia to the cities of Berlin and Istanbul, the stories are also connected by the wider theme of people attempting to improve their lot, be it in love or wealth, with each thread originating from an instance of smuggling, whether Turkish antiquities or American cigarettes.
The story opens with the first-person narrative of thirty-something Reyna, a white single mother with a four-year-old son, Oliver, living in Harlem with a fondness for meaningful tattoos and an African-American boyfriend, Boyd, who is serving a three month stint in Rikers Island for selling weed. In love with Boyd yet unsure of his own commitment and sincerity, Reyna’s three-hour round trips to visit him coincide with the return of her aunt Kiki to the East Village after eight years living in Turkey. As self-contained Kiki enters Reyna’s life both women come together as adults and Kiki gives her niece a genuine Turkish rug as well as a multitude of pearls of wisdom on the many phases of her life as she recalls men she has loved with a touching spirit of generosity. Despite alarm bells telling Reyna that standing by Boyd has the potential to backfire if his eye wanders or he is led into the criminal pursuits of his cousin and neighbourhood pals upon his release, she stays the course. As open minded Kiki interacts with Reyna’s life the narrative is also punctuated by insights into the decision Kiki made to initially stay in Turkey and throughout her lifetime to date which make her ripe for further exploration.
As Boyd’s release brings domestic bliss for Reyna, the criminal pursuits of his buddies, Claude, Wiley, and his cousin, Maxwell, threaten to land him in strife as they orchestrate a plan to smuggle cigarettes interstate from Richmond, Virginia to New York with the differing taxation rates as the profit. As the reader is drawn deeper into their lives this is woven between snippets of Reyna’s travails along with her discoveries and natural curiosity about her aunt’s colourful life. The novel goes on to capture the ripple effects when a car accident on one such smuggling trip in which Reyna reneges on her agreed involvement ends in tragedy and thereby impacts on an unfortunate long haul truck driver and Claude’s newly deserted love interest. As the repercussions shatter Reyna and Boyd’s fragile relationship and send Reyna into hiding from Claude’s vengeful sister, Lynnette, the consequences resound. Making apparent how a perturbation in one life miles away can have far-reaching effects on the lives of many others and introduce chaos into their own lives, Joan Silber’s novel provides a look at cause and consequence in everyday life.
Part II sees Reyna’s narrative give way to a series of chapters focusing on the characters whose lives and circumstances are altered by the tragedy of part I, along with Kiki’s many friends and those that are played a part in her life. Whilst some of these characters stories, such as Claude’s devastated new girl, Darise, who is left hanging and aged trucker, Teddy, whose livelihood is placed in jeopardy, are as involving and moving as Reyna and Kiki’s stories, others, such as the trio of German antiquities smugglers (Dieter, Bruno and Steffi) failed to hold the same interest for me. However despite this they are all woven together seamlessly and never feel out of place. As Part III opens with a return to Reyna’s first-person narrative it gives some closure to her residual guilt surrounding the tragic incident of Part I and the result is an opportunity to reflect on an big-hearted and insightful story full of understated life lessons.
Silber’s characters, whether likeable or not, leap from the page and she explores them in pared back and uncluttered prose yet manages to capture them perfectly, with even their dialogue ringing true. Everyone of her characters, not just lead protagonists Reyna and Kiki, leave a lasting impression and I was riveted by this study on the ebb and flow of lives all intrinsically connected by the idea of improvement and advancement be it in life, love or happiness. Although the novel may sound a deceptively simple composition, Silber’s brilliance is in making her characters each feel so integral to one another’s stories despite being significant in number and Improvement really is a human testimony to the butterfly effect.
A genuine pleasure to read with an understated premise that shows that geography barely matters, Improvement is a sublime look at cause and consequence in our everyday lives. However it is the compelling and credible voice of mixed-up Reyna, who at times demonstrates exceptional maturity to then stumble over the simplest mistake, and inspirational, freewheeling Kiki that hold the entire novel together and make it a success. On the strength of Silber’s prose alone, form her turns of phrase to her perceptive take on lives across races and cultures worldwide, I am very keen to read more of her work.
With thanks to Readers First who provided me with a free copy of this novel in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.
October 22, 2020
This readable literary novel consists of several storylines woven together. The characters are striving for their idea of "improvement," some more successfully than others. I liked the Turkish settings and culture since I spent time there decades ago. The book gets bonus points for the wry humor. The smugglers' misadventures in Turkey probably engaged me the most.
November 7, 2019
Improvement by Joan Silber is an interconneced book of short stories, and like every one I've ever encountered, is a mixed bag. It takes a writer of tremendous power to create different characters and make all of them interesting, especially when they're directly comparable to each other, and while this is a relatively slim volume, it also suffers from the very natural sentiment that there were some characters (and stories) that were, simply put, a lot more interesting than others. Funnily enough, I thought the book got stronger towards the end, with the more interesting characters being Kiki and the three germans, Bruno, Deiter and Steffi. So when this book is good, it's really good, but otherwise it didn't leave much of an impression in me and left me wanting more.
As the title suggests, each character is looking for a way to improve their lives, and it generally discusses the hardship of every day life, from lesser tragedies, like worrying about money, to bigger ones, like the loss of a loved one. However, I was expecting this book to have a lot more depth than it has -- Silber doesn't exactly provide any new food for thought and certain realizations were shallow when you think of this as literary (adult) fiction.
As the title suggests, each character is looking for a way to improve their lives, and it generally discusses the hardship of every day life, from lesser tragedies, like worrying about money, to bigger ones, like the loss of a loved one. However, I was expecting this book to have a lot more depth than it has -- Silber doesn't exactly provide any new food for thought and certain realizations were shallow when you think of this as literary (adult) fiction.
July 29, 2022
Sei gradi di separazione
Nonostante le lodi sperticate di buona parte della critica, per me ”Tutte le conseguenze si è rivelata una delle letture più insignificanti del 2022.
Una delle particolarità e, secondo alcuni, uno dei punti di forza del libro è costituito dalla struttura articolata in otto capitoli, ognuno dei quali riparte da un personaggio secondario del capitolo precedente, fatta eccezione per l’ultimo che riprende alcuni nodi narrativi del capitolo iniziale.
Detto così si capisce poco e allora, tanto per esemplificare: nel capitolo 2 compare una figura secondaria, un balordo con velleità da contrabbandiere, che va a schiantarsi in auto contro un TIR; il capitolo successivo segue le vicende della ragazza della quale costui si era appena invaghito, ancora ignara della sua sorte, e quello seguente ci racconta le traversie del guidatore del TIR, ambedue (la ragazza e il camionista) mai incontrati nella narrazione precedente né in quella successiva.
E fin qui niente di male: tanto vale considerare il libro della Silber una raccolta di racconti, anche se molti hanno voluto leggere questa catena di conseguenze come una concatenazione di eventi con un significato che trascende le peripezie e le esistenze dei singoli individui, “un mosaico di vite” è stato anche scritto.
Comunque si valuti l’impalcatura di Tutte le conseguenze, le storie restano di scarso interesse, eventi ordinari (fatta eccezione per l’incidente stradale…) nelle vite di ladruncoli, piccoli spacciatori, camionisti, estetiste (senza offesa per le rispettive categorie…) impegnati nella loro routine quotidiana, nei dissidi con il coniuge, l’amante, i genitori e nelle illusioni di un futuro migliore, il tutto avvolto in un inesorabile effetto deja-vu…
Per di più, lo stile è quello di un libro (continuo a rifiutarmi di definirlo “romanzo”…) dalla scrittura talmente “scorrevole” che, nella vana attesa che fra le righe e i dialoghi qualcosa accenda l’attenzione, si arriva alla fine della pagina, del capitolo e del volume senza neppure accorgersene e assimilare quanto si è letto, cominciando dal minuto successivo a sentirne sfumare e confondersi il ricordo.
Prendete con le molle questo commento perché, a onor del vero, ci sono in rete molte recensioni positive, ma quando qualcuno (non un goodreadsiano qualunque come il sottoscritto, ma un blog letterario) arriva addirittura a imbastire paragoni con le raccolte di Alice Munro, faccio fatica a tenere un tono compassato.
Nonostante le lodi sperticate di buona parte della critica, per me ”Tutte le conseguenze si è rivelata una delle letture più insignificanti del 2022.
Una delle particolarità e, secondo alcuni, uno dei punti di forza del libro è costituito dalla struttura articolata in otto capitoli, ognuno dei quali riparte da un personaggio secondario del capitolo precedente, fatta eccezione per l’ultimo che riprende alcuni nodi narrativi del capitolo iniziale.
Detto così si capisce poco e allora, tanto per esemplificare: nel capitolo 2 compare una figura secondaria, un balordo con velleità da contrabbandiere, che va a schiantarsi in auto contro un TIR; il capitolo successivo segue le vicende della ragazza della quale costui si era appena invaghito, ancora ignara della sua sorte, e quello seguente ci racconta le traversie del guidatore del TIR, ambedue (la ragazza e il camionista) mai incontrati nella narrazione precedente né in quella successiva.
E fin qui niente di male: tanto vale considerare il libro della Silber una raccolta di racconti, anche se molti hanno voluto leggere questa catena di conseguenze come una concatenazione di eventi con un significato che trascende le peripezie e le esistenze dei singoli individui, “un mosaico di vite” è stato anche scritto.
Comunque si valuti l’impalcatura di Tutte le conseguenze, le storie restano di scarso interesse, eventi ordinari (fatta eccezione per l’incidente stradale…) nelle vite di ladruncoli, piccoli spacciatori, camionisti, estetiste (senza offesa per le rispettive categorie…) impegnati nella loro routine quotidiana, nei dissidi con il coniuge, l’amante, i genitori e nelle illusioni di un futuro migliore, il tutto avvolto in un inesorabile effetto deja-vu…
Per di più, lo stile è quello di un libro (continuo a rifiutarmi di definirlo “romanzo”…) dalla scrittura talmente “scorrevole” che, nella vana attesa che fra le righe e i dialoghi qualcosa accenda l’attenzione, si arriva alla fine della pagina, del capitolo e del volume senza neppure accorgersene e assimilare quanto si è letto, cominciando dal minuto successivo a sentirne sfumare e confondersi il ricordo.
Prendete con le molle questo commento perché, a onor del vero, ci sono in rete molte recensioni positive, ma quando qualcuno (non un goodreadsiano qualunque come il sottoscritto, ma un blog letterario) arriva addirittura a imbastire paragoni con le raccolte di Alice Munro, faccio fatica a tenere un tono compassato.
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