Secrets of Happiness: A Novel

by Joan Silber

When a man discovers his father in New York has long had another, secret, family--a wife and two kids--the interlocking fates of both families lead to surprise loyalties, love triangles, and a reservoir of inner strength.

Ethan, a young lawyer in New York, learns that his father has long kept a second family--a Thai wife and two kids living in Queens. In the aftermath of this revelation, Ethan's mother spends a year working abroad, returning much changed, and events introduce her to the other wife. Across town, Ethan's half brothers are caught in their own complicated journeys: one brother's penchant for minor delinquency has escalated, and the other must travel to Bangkok to bail him out, while the bargains their mother has struck about love and money continue to shape their lives.

As Ethan finds himself caught in a love triangle of his own, the interwoven fates of these two households elegantly unfurl to encompass a woman rallying to help an ill brother with an unreliable lover and a filmmaker with a girlhood spent in Nepal. Evoking a generous and humane spirit, and a story that ranges over three continents, Secrets of Happiness elucidates the ways people marshal the resources at hand to forge their own forms of joy.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Adult, Book Club, Novels

275 pages, Paperback

First published May 4, 2021

About the author

Joan 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.

Reviews

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.8 rating ... review to follow in a day or two. Must get more sleep ...
overall... I think this might be my favorite Joan Silber book!! One particular part got to me so deeply - I had to step away for a day - before reading more - needing time to contemplate some thoughts.

UPDATE:....my review....

I’m so passionate about these interconnected stories - more than I can contain my deepest appreciation.
We seldom see fiction written like this—masterly-connected - brimming with rebellion and deceptions - exploring the world of nuance and complexity, brought to life through the authors relentless quest for the humanity of each of her characters.

This isn’t the first time I’ve read books by Joan Silber.....and her seamlessly brilliant woven storytelling-talents > the consequences that one character has on another....but “Secrets of Happiness” is my favorite ....( and believe me I enjoyed her other books), which is why the second I saw this one— I wanted to read it.
I didn’t even read the blurb— I just knew I was in the mood re-visit Joan Silber.

The spokespeople are six voices: Ethan, Joe, Maribel, Rachel, Bud, and Tara.

Ethan begins and ends these interwoven tales.
Ethan: ( the story ‘begins’)....
“My father was on the road a lot when I was growing up, off to parts of Asia to oversee the cheap manufacture of ladies’ garments. You couldn’t stay still, he said in today’s business world. ‘Ever ask him about the local babes?’one of my friends wanted to know. ‘You should go with him next time, Ethan’. He was just being a smartass— we were fifteen-year-old boys at the time, obnoxious whenever we could be”.
It was the late 1980’s, Ethan actually had a crush on his friend Mike.... not his first crush but Ethan was still keeping things to himself.
Ethan wasn’t out until his first year of college.
He met his first serious boyfriend, Robert, while at Yale. Ethan’s parents were accepting of Ethan’s sexuality ... and liked Robert.
It was the gay humor from his contemporaries he didn’t understand.
Ethan and Robert lasted a full year as a couple, and they weren’t even angry when it ended”.
Later, Ethan becomes a lawyer and moves in with a new boyfriend, Tony. And....there will be much more to learn about Ethan....as all the other characters.

Ethan’s mother, a teacher, was a great support of Ethan....
But/and.... something changes for Ethan’s mother. She could benefit from some support herself!
Something happens to Ethan’s father too....
And Ethan has his own life to journey...

Joe’s High School girlfriend, Veronica, wanted him to marry her.
Instead — she marries Schuyler....( for five years).... much more where this story goes too ( Joan can spin a tale in directions you can’t even guess)...

Maribel....
When we first meet Maribel she was working on a film shoot, a runner, and Great Britain.
It was a documentary about textile mills in the 19th century. She did minor tasks.
Schuyler was on the camera crew, he was always decent to everyone.
Maribel knew that he was going back to New York. She could see his wedding band, but she started seeing him anyway.
It wasn’t hard to get him to take her back to his hotel room.
Maribel says...
“I was a model of sunny good nature, a production assistant sprinkled with pixie dust, and everybody did what I said. Everybody loved me”.
The filming was going to take four weeks.
Schuyler had gotten married right out of college. “Who did that anymore?” Maribel knew better than to ask him, but she wanted to believe that he had felt sorry for her.

Rachel ( Sister Susie) < an inside joke .... had some balls. She was a kick ass character if she was pissed. Her brother, Saul, was sick... and she was going to protect him while maybe stick needle pins in the eyes of his ex-boyfriend ...if needed.
Not to worry.... both brother and sister have their own journey we follow.

Nadia (not one of our prime narrative voices....but we will remember her).... i’ll just say she’s the youngest of the group.

Bud.....
THIS IS THE STORY I FOUND MOST GUT-WRENCHING....(due to my own semi-estrangement from our oldest daughter). I put the book down for a day to think about this story from all sides.... before reading on....
I rather not share much about Bud.....but he’s the character I will think about most.
I’ll only share a tidbit:
THIS IS YOUNG Bud....
“I managed to graduate from my stuffy prep school; I’ve pbeen there enough days, and they gave up on me. I hadn’t applied to any colleges— I’d always thought I’d have to, or else be drafted, but the war wound down and the draft ended, just in time for me. My parents thought I should work for a year to give me a chance to mature, and I had spoken to one of their friends about a future in retail management, whatever that was. Of course, the night after graduation I was gone, escaped on a train with a duffel full of books and sweaters and underwear”....
This family story ....involving years of travel, jobs, and confusing relationships — will stay with me for years....I’m still learning from it.

Tara....
We get backstory about Tara‘s mother, boyfriends, swiping pharmaceuticals from the doctors office— influenced by a guy....
Then there’s another guy...and Tara is born from ‘one of these guys’...
Spent the first nine years living in Kathmandu Nepal. A happy childhood.
“Who knew where happiness came from? Well actually, there were theories. In Buddhism my father sometimes followed you heard arguments on the vanity of grasping for happiness. Whatever you ran after and clung to was destined to slip out of your hands, melt like snow, dissolve into thin air. What could be more obvious? The truth of impermanence was somehow a cheering idea to my father. He scoffed at the penny-ante ambitions most people knocked themselves out for. He believed in freedom, my father”.

Tara, and her sister, Apsara, move to Berkeley, as children - with their free-spirit parents.... and it’s quite an adjustment for everyone. Tara and Apsara missed the free-style living in Nepal.
People who move to Berkeley discover it’s not completely as liberal as they might have thought. Berkeley values education..not just climbing trees....and playing hopscotch....and smoking pot.

MUCH MORE - MUCH MORE —FASCINATING STORYTELLING from all these characters....while doing some traveling... Thailand, New York, Cambodia, Great Britain,... etc.

These stories ( parenting themes, families, LGBTQIA, and relationships of all kinds), are tightly packed with ingenious sides with surprising wisdom that gives this book the ultimate heft!

Thank you Counterpoint Press, Netgalley, and Joan Silber

LOVED IT!!!
Comes out in May, 2021

[Angela M · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading the first two chapters of this book which took me to about halfway through, I wasn’t sure if this was going to work for me. I was pulled in at the beginning and I wanted to keep reading about this family, well these two families connected by the same father. I connected with Ethan and Joe, sons of the same father with different mothers. Their father had kept a secret family and I couldn’t wait to read more about how they might interact, what the relationships of these families would be. The narrative in the next chapter, though, went on to include some peripheral characters, I thought. A woman who was having an affair with the husband of an ex girlfriend of one of the son’s in the family was that next narrator. Then a chapter from the point of view of a woman’s whose brother’s long time boyfriend left him for another man, who happened to be a son in one of the families.

I thought of the book as a novel because it was referred to as a novel in something that I had read about it. I suddenly realized that if I looked at this as a series of connected stories that it was brilliant, bringing these stories together with characters from previous ones, or characters connected to them - so many interesting connections. I might have known this if I had read more about the author and her writing. Once I changed my reading perspective, it turned out to be a great reading experience. The writing is fantastic. How could I not get pulled in when the narration is so natural, so smooth, as if the narrator of that chapter is conversing with you personally, telling you their story. Life isn’t easy as we know and the Silber depicts the complexities of it - family secrets, estrangements, terminal illness, money and inheritance, regret, but as in life these complexities are sometimes tempered by love, by friendship, by just moving forward with your life, by good people in your life. This is the first book I’ve read by her, but definitely will look into others.

I received a copy of this book from Counterpoint through Edelweiss.

[Lisa (NY) · Rating 4 out of 5]

The characters in this novel don't have much in common except a connection, sometimes tenuous, with each other. I thought about the title frequently while reading. Starting with Ethan and his discovery of his father's secret life, the linked stories portray six narrators who all confront obstacles - happiness is not a straight line. But that is the point. Ethan, Joe, Maribel, Rachel, Bud, Tara are all trying to live a better life. Silber writes about them with wisdom and generosity.
(Thank you to Counterpoint Press for sending me an ARC.)

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

You don't get to choose the notes in a family concerto. They come about in a myriad of ways. Some right on point. Some shockingly unexpected. And some painfully sharp and piercing.

Joan Silber creates a series of short stories here with a continuing saga of family and those who make up its moveable parts. And there's always the trunkload of secrets that finally seep through into the present. No one can adequately measure the aftermath and its impact.

Most men don't get bonus points for being verbal and straightforward. They usually play their cards close to the chest. Even that did not prepare Ethan for the unexpected discovery of a whopper of a hidden life that his father led. There in the background was another family.....a Thai wife and two other children living in Queens. Now that will knock the legs out from under you.

We follow through Ethan's reactions and dismay within these stories. Ethan is a complicated character within himself. But he realizes a certain commitment that flows through him. Ethan takes off to Bangkok in search of a wayward half-brother. Bailing this young man prone to shady ways is only the beginning.

Joan Silber emphasizes an unforeseeable bond that takes us down unexpected paths in life. Is it nature or nurture that prompts us into action most of the time? Silber tosses about the human quest for happiness. It never seems to be a one-time one-and-done prospect. Perhaps it's the search itself that peaks the highs and suffers the lows with the impetus to keep moving forward. Secrets of Happiness is a well written journey into just that.

[Diane Barnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have long wanted to read something by Joan Silber, since reading all the great reviews of "Improvement". I saw this at my library, brought it home, read it, and now I know. I like her writing, I like her voice, and I want to read more.

"But how do people make these colossal bargains about what they decide to put up with?"

That, my friends, is a question for the ages. Spoken by a 23 year old girl when looking at the relationships all around her. It's what all the people who narrate these interconnected chapters are trying to decide for themselves. Who gets to be happy? Do you take it for yourself, or give it to others? Parents, children, husbands, wives, brothers , sisters, lovers; its all just a crap shoot in the end. Necessary but unavoidable if you are to be a part of society.

Joan Silber is intelligent, funny and perceptive, everything I like in an author. Now to get to the other novels she has written in the last 20 or so years before I knew anything about her. The library can be a dangerous place.

[Ron Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Evidently, we have an inalienable right to pursue happiness. Finding it is another matter. But if we’re failing, it’s not for lack of interest. The market for self-help books has been growing at double-digit rates for years. Surely, if all those earnest titles were laid end to end, they would reach nirvana.

Try searching for Joan Silber’s new novel, “Secrets of Happiness,” and you’ll have to paw through a pile of similar titles from Lucy Diamond, Eckhart Tolle, Billy Graham and others. Depending on your guru of choice, there are seven, eight, 10, 12, 48 or 100 “secrets of happiness.” Many of these authors agree that the secret is “simple,” but there’s no consensus on whether the secret is revealed by the Danish, the Japanese or your dog.

The science is unsettled. Which is pretty much the point of Silber’s novel.

Her “Secrets of Happiness” looks like a series of linked stories, but it’s more like a roulette wheel in print: Each chapter spins to some other character in a large circle of possibilities. It takes only a moment to get your bearings, and the disappointment of leaving one narrator behind is instantly replaced by the delight of meeting a new one. The relationships between these people are sometimes close, sometimes tenuous, but every one of them is looking for the secret to happiness. (Spoiler alert: They do not all find it.)

The prime mover in this ever-expanding universe of stories is a manufacturer of ladies’ garments, who regularly travels from New York to Thailand. We don’t ever hear from him directly, but in the opening story, his family discovers that he has a Thai mistress and family not too far away from their big Manhattan apartment. In fact, Mom No. 2 is the hostess at a Thai restaurant they frequently go to in Queens.

“Married thirty-two years,” says Mom No. 1 to anyone who will listen. “I feel crazy.” Her philandering husband feels “put upon by all the fuss.”

To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joan Silber has written some wonderful books, but this may be my favorite. She employs a convention I particularly like - her novels consist of interlocking stories in which the characters are related. The underlying thread that weaves through these stories is love, most specifically, familial love in all its messiness. Brothers and sisters, parents and their offspring, how people meet, how they stay together and what binds them or tears them apart. Whether it was as one character supposes "... the whole notion of families was misguided and false"... or as later he thinks when he discovers the ties are inescapable, "Were you always and forever what you were born into? I had set up my life relying on other principles." There is not a clichéd or boring situation in any of these stories, and as they intersect, Silber's characters find themselves if not all the answers.

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who knows where happiness comes from? In this exquisite new book by Joan Silber, the vanity of grasping for happiness—which is destined to slip out of our hands—is revealed through six interlocking narrators. Their tenuous grip is revealed as the very nature of what makes them happy shifts its shape.

It all starts with a man named Gil—a husband and father who is revealed to have two families after he suffers a stroke. Both his American and his Thai-born wife have two children each, and surprisingly, the wives they master the art of restraint in dealing with each other.

And then it spirals out from there. We discover the stories of Gil’s adult gay son, Ethan—who finds himself in his own love triangle—as well as Joe (the son of the Thai-born wife) and his girlfriend Veronica who married a wealthy man named Schuyler who is having an affair with a British woman named Maribel. And then we meet Rachel, whose brother Saul is dying of cancer, and Bud who was raised by John Birchers, and Tara from transitioned from Kathmandu to Berkeley and other characters, some of whom have six degrees of separation.

The quest for happiness, Joan Silber seems to be saying, is universal as we span countries and genders and ages and ethnicities. And sometimes, the lessons we learn are not the ones we expect to learn: that happiness can come from leading an authentic life or letting go of a material possession or an expected way of living our life. A one-time lover from far away, the dying lover of a current lover, a husband’s secret second wife—all of them provide insights and ways to move forward.

Joan Silber, as always, writes as if it were effortless (and this is merely an illusion) and infuses her nuanced characters with a kind of quirky wisdom. Despite some situations which at first appear to be sad, what ties these stories together is the hope of redemption and the belief that the possibilities of some form of happiness exist, even if in impermanence. A big thanks to #CounterpointPress and #NetGalley for the opportunity to become an early reader of an author I’ve long loved.

[Tooter · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25 Stars

[Lynn Siegler · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m not sure where I found out about this book online. It sounded interesting, and my library had a digital copy to borrow. At first, it was intriguing; adult children find out their father has another family living close by. The first few sections were good, and followed the promotion of the book. However, that was only a third of what this book was about.

Basically, this book has 7 sections based on 6 different characters. Some have a relationship to the others that’s easy to follow; half siblings, lovers, friends. Others had a 6th degree of separation from the other characters. I had to go back through the book to find the barest connection a few times.

While the book was well written, the storylines were weird, and the title doesn’t match the stories at all. About 70% through I wanted to give up…but plowed ahead to see what the big climax was. There wasn’t one. The book just stopped. Not many characters were happy either.

Giving this 2 stars as I would never reread the book, it did not live up to the marketing, and I didn’t really care about any of the characters.

[Holly R W · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book of linked stories featuring six character narrators who are related to each other through six degrees of separation. I found each one of these characters to be compelling and interesting to read about. The book opens with a story about a middle-aged man who has two separate families - a Jewish wife and two children living in NYC and a Thai wife and children who have moved to the same city. After this story, the book flows like a stone that skips upon the surface of a river. Each time the stone skips, a new story emerges about tangential characters found in previous stories: Friends of friends, brothers, ex-boyfriends, etc. Sometimes, I had to think hard to remember the connections.

Several themes linked the vignettes. Matters of money, male infidelity, travel to southeast Asia, the garment industry, and Buddhist spirituality were threads running throughout all of the stories. Politics came up in a couple of them. I enjoyed thinking about all of this as I was reading the book.

What are the secrets of happiness? The characters' lives are complicated. Moments of happiness are fleeting as in real life. The author has some of her characters come to a Buddhist inspired way of looking at their experiences. This intrigued me.

All in all, I found this collection of stories to be both original and thought provoking. Now, I would like to read another book by Ms. Silber.

[Marjorie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had expected to enjoy this one more than I actually did. That might have to do with the fact that I was expecting a novel about a family who learn that the husband/father actually has another family with a Thai woman. That story was only covered in the first and last chapters of the book. The remaining chapters consist of short stories which are slightly interconnected - some are about people mentioned in previous stories or a friend or relative of someone in one of the stories. Some of the stories I enjoyed, others not so much. I didn't feel very connected to any of the people in the book, probably due to the fact that I hadn't spent much time with each of them before moving on to another chapter involving someone different. Each of the stories did, however, have a connecting theme - the search for happiness.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

SECRETS OF HAPPINESS
BY JOAN SiLBER

I have been a devoted fan of Joan Silber's writing for twenty plus year's. You can imagine how excited I was to see this novel arrive on my dashboard. Joan writes interesting and unique literary fiction that is way above average. I didn't even read what this was about I knew that I would enjoy it and it didn't disappoint me as she never has before.

In the very beginning we learn that the husband and father of a long term marriage has had a secret family with two adult children that live near by. He was always travelling or away from home on business but now we understand why. These aren't spoilers as it is something said in the synopsis and happens very early on.

What I found amazing is how civil the two wives are to each other when learning about this infidelity because the husband suffers a stroke and some mini strokes that makes him not act himself. The long term wife handles her husband's infidelity and second family like its not a big blow. There are many character's and a lot going on which I appreciated. The writing is smooth and seamless.

Maribel and Schuyler having an affair in England. She know's Schuyler is married to Veronica in New York but goes ahead and continues. When he takes a call and leaves the room, she gets jealous. An accident happens. Maribel has what could be a hard phone call, but she shows great self restraint.

Rachel and her brother Saul who has leukemia and Saul's long term boyfriend named Kirk whose apartment was his meant Saul having to find a new place to live. Saul is a 57 year old librarian with little money. Rachel is stunned and outraged but she always liked Kirk. Saul says don't make a big deal out of this. And what the outcome is surprising.

Joan Silber is a master of infusing the gray area into her characterizations and their realizations. She makes us feel the good of humanity in ending each of her multi-character vignettes find that upbeat ray of hopefulness and redemption. That is what I love about reading her work. There could be gut wrenching sadness but she leaves each scenario with level headed prose that is not depressing.
Highly recommended. This one is my favorite of her novels. There is so much more to this multilayered character driven narrative. There are many diverse character's and places but it is simple to keep them all straight in your mind because they are memorable.

Publication Date: May 4, 2021

Thank you to Net Galley, Joan Silber and Counterpoint Press for generously providing me with my ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

#SecretsofHappiness #JoanSilber #CounterpointPress #NetGalley

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a perfectly written book. I can't imagine how it could be better.

There are a group of characters whose lives intersect. There is a father with two families--one from Southeast Asia and one from New York City (the story takes place in NYC and Southeast Asia, with a short excursion into England). There is a shifting mosaic of relationships as people search for ways to, as the title implies, find happiness, which is ever elusive.

Everyone and everything is vividly depicted. Reading this was an intensely pleasurable experience, the kind I think all readers crave.

[Lynne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding! Thought provoking stories where characters are connected in some way. I really enjoyed these stories but also trying to determine the connection from prior stories. I somewhat put off reading this for a couple of days because I thought it might be a self help book. While it’s not that format, I feel I did glean some peace and knowledge from these stories. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

[Gretchen Rubin]

A wonderful novel told from the viewpoint of different interlocking narrators (a structure I love).

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my second book by Silber after IMPROVEMENT, which I really loved. This one has a similar structure of somewhat connected stories though it lacks a little of the focus and heft.

I could read a neverending book by Silber moving from story to story. They don't all feel the same, and the way she integrates you into each story so quickly and gets you so connected is impressive. The downside of this model is that by the end there are enough stories that they don't all feel as strongly defined in your brain, but really that is our brains' fault, they should catch up. Here our characters are mostly well off white people in New York City, though the slipperiness of class certainly shows up. Most of the focus is on stories of family and romance, starting off with Ethan, a gay lawyer who finds out that his father has kept a whole other family. There are lots of breakups and divorces, but there are also strange lingering and returning relationships, old lovers who return, affairs and aging and death and the way they can make everything shift.

There was one element that held me back on this book, though. Several of the characters are directly or tangentially connected to Southeast Asia. One woman is born in Nepal to globetrotting parents, one man lives for several years in Cambodia working for an NGO, and one character is Thai-American, born to a mother who emigrated to the US. But most of these connections involve the garment industry, including a few white men who are well off thanks to factories there. I kept thinking Silber was about to dive into this, about how her characters are profiting off exploited labor, but every time I think it'd come up it would move to the sidelines. Even the character whose work specifically involves advocating for labor rights has all those rights as more of a subplot than anything else. It was a strange oversight, how do we spend so long going over the emotional wreckage of a man who cheated on his wife but ignore the fact that that same man made his money from exploitative labor that now allows his ex-wife to live comfortably and travel to Asia to see the places he never took her?

I did the audiobook of this and the readers were all perfectly nice, works well if not particularly notable in that format.

[Baz · Rating 5 out of 5]

My new favourite writer did it again – made me fall in love with her flawed but lovable characters. I love the precision of her writing, the short sharp paragraphs, its fluidity and art; the way her characters’ monologues flow, packed with incident and story; the way time passes. I love the questions the characters ask, of themselves, of life in general, of happiness and money and family. I love how unafraid Silber is to cross continents, travel to different countries, to inhabit gay characters and Asian characters. Her last book, Improvement, had black protagonists. And it shouldn’t be notable but it’s a notable thing. Silber wants to be expansive, she delights in it, and I love her for it. Little known, Silber is doing her thing quietly, not engaging in the “Who should tell whose stories?” debate, but going ahead and doing what she knows is absolutely normal, and right, and beautiful.

I like to read what reviewers say about the books I read because they do a much better job than me. And in this case I loved the way author Joshua Ferris described the effect of Silber’s novel-in-stories structure, which it definitely had on me:

"In book after book, Silber gets things up and running with one character, telling his or her story to its fullest, before leaping into a wholly different life and telling all about it. These narratives are often richly rewarding on their own, but more sublime is what can fall out between any two accounts: some devastating misunderstanding or easily missed opportunity that, heartbreaking as it might be for the characters, rewards the reader with a rare, delectable irony. Silber illuminates those invisible fissures and inexplicable distances that we sense, however dimly, make up our shared lives with others as much as our formal connections and open battles . . . I never wonder more at how little we know about how greatly we factor in other people’s lives than I do when reading Silber at her best. She aims, in increments, at the ecstatic...”

[Royce · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read Joan Silber’s short story, Evolution, in the New Yorker, in September. I liked her writing very much, so I decided to start with her novel, Secrets of Happiness. The title alone intrigued me.
It’s a novel divided into seven chapters, each narrated by a different person, except the first and last chapters, which are narrated by Ethan. The narrators all have a connection to each other, yet it is not always clear. Each narrator struggles to find his/her own happiness. No one seems to find the happiness they are searching for and it is a very dismal and depressing read because of it. Don’t get me wrong, there are hilarious parts also, but the overall tone and feelings I took away from reading this book is sadness and despair. Maybe that was Joan’s point all along, life is a series of ups and downs, highs and lows?!? Although I like her writing, I think if the book were narrated only by Ethan, it would have been fantastic!

[Robert Blumenthal · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had read joan Silber's earlier novel, Lucky Us, and liked it quite a bit, but certainly didn't love it. Secrets of Happiness is on a whole other level, IMHO. It is a group of 7 short stories that are interconnected, with previous characters appearing in later stories in "It's a Small World After All" manner. It starts off with Ethan, the gay son of a well off couple in New York. They come to discover that their Father has another secret family with a Thai woman. The second story is narrated by one of the sons of that secret family, and then various people who are somehow connected to previous characters become the narrators, with the last story again narrated by Ethan.

There are some recurring themes, a lot of them revolving around money. The book title, Secrets of Happiness, kind of poses the question can money bring happiness with the answer generally being not really. Actually it seems to get in the way of true happiness at times. Somehow money seems to be mentioned in all of the stories. And there are various little quips, usually at the end of each story, that show that some rather small things can be the impetus for happiness. Buddhism is mentioned a few times, and the concept of making your own happiness is prevalent--like that book title, How to Want What You Have.

This book is so well written, the author is so wise and concise, and I found myself absorbed in these characters and their lives. Relationships come and go, and come back again. Wrongs are forgiven, or at least not all-consuming, and the concept of letting go and forgiveness seem to be a real key to the secret of happiness.

[Jaclyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you crossed Elizabeth Strout with Sigrid Nunez and sprinkled in a little Alice Munro you would be reading Joan Silber. What I particularly loved about this multi-voice novel was how immersed I was in the first voice Ethan and how each subsequent perspective deviated further from him, yet always captured my interest, only to return to him so he bookended this remarkable work. Silber is a writer I trust completely and she never sets me on edge. She inhabits her characters completely and there is an ease and confidence to her writing that is delightful. I guess that’s what comes with having published nine books.

[Karen Foster · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the structure of this novel, it’s series of interconnected short stories and it’s lovely writing, drawing me further into the complicated lives of the six characters. Each story touches on someone striving towards some kind of happiness, for a life well lived, for some kind of meaningful connections to be made. These tales of families and friendships, money and greed, love and loss, betrayal and kindness, intertwine across many continents, characters diverse in age, race, and gender.
This is my first time reading this author, but it won’t be my last.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I admit I was a little confused at first as I went into this book blind and initially it seemed like these were all short stories about different characters. But once I realized they were all inter-connected, I began to appreciate Silber's approach as it exposes secrets characters kept from one another as well as how they coped with loss and disappointment. It centers around Ethan as he discovers his father had a second family they knew nothing about. From there it spins off into others' stories but it all comes full circle. What we learn is there is really no "secret to happiness;" we must all learn to cope and channel our lives as we see fit. Happiness isn't given to us; it's created by the choices we make and the way we treat others with compassion and understanding.
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

To me, this seemed to be a novel centered around money and is it or is it not the secret of happiness. It is told in six different voices with each voice a separate chapter save for one character who has two chapters. The characters all have a connection but it reads almost as separate stories. It is an enjoyable character-driven story.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was all ready to give this the ol' 4-star review and say it wasn't gonna change your life or anything, but then I got to the end and realized I was going to do a few things differently, change the way I thought of certain situations or people a bit, as a result of reading this book, so, hey, maybe it will change your life! Add in the fact that it's short, it's a group of linked stories (I'm a sucker for that format), and it's written superbly, and we've got ourselves a five-star book, folks. For me, it was just what the doctor ordered after slogging through a few more "important" books.

And now, I see that Silber has a lot of novels in this format; lucky me for just discovering her!

[Mihaela · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 *

[Danielle Beeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5, I loved this. I couldn't put it down. Each character was so well developed, I forgot where and who I was and just fully lived in their heads. I'm going to be looking into Silber's other works for sure.

[Cherise Wolas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like Improvement, Silber's previous novel (and earlier of her works) the structure here is linked stories, featuring various narrators over the chapters, each within some degree of the others. Here there are six narrators and seven chapters. The book begins with Ethan, a lawyer with a fraught love life who learns, as does his mother and sister, that his father Gil has a second family in Queens, a Thai woman with whom he’s had two sons. Next we're with Joe, one of Gil's half-Thai sons, though Joe's story focuses primarily on an ex-girlfriend named Veronica who, at 25, is newly widowed after the death of her husband. Next we're with Maribel, Veronica's dead husband's lover. Then we're with Bud, who once dated Rachel, the sister of Saul who used to be Ethan's lover's lover, and on it goes. Improvement worked so well, but the structure works less well here, the connections between and among the characters more attenuated and tenuous, and the roundness of the interconnectedness among them, how they are tied by their histories in common, felt not fully realized to me; for instance, we never learn what Ethan thinks of his newly discovered brother Joe, or what Joe thinks of Ethan. While each of the chapters is interesting to read, the prose informal, as if listening to a friend, the characters' voices weren't particularly distinct, and the theme of what constitutes happiness, which is already very subtle, didn't really work to tie this together. Which is not to say that I wasn't interested, I was and it's a quick read, but for me it lacked the impact I recall from Improvement.

[Deborah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m not sure I’d call this a novel, but rather a series of linked stories with unifying themes. No matter—it’s a gorgeous read whatever you prefer to call it. Ethan, a young lawyer in New York, discovers his father has long had another family, a Thai woman and two sons, not much younger than he, living in Brooklyn. The story starts (and ends) with Ethan, but each succeeding chapter shifts to another character, and the major characters crop up repeatedly as part of each other’s experience. Sometimes I was well into a chapter before the penny dropped—“Oh, that’s who this person is and how they belong”—but it was such an elegant web of connections, subtly and beautifully done, generous and humane. The people in these stories face some daunting challenges, but they each find their own way to carry on with, yes, something like happiness. Highly recommended.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reviewing this for BookPage but just between you and me, it's five stars!

Review in the May issue of Book Page https://bookpage.com/reviews/26173-jo...