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Alone With You
Eight indelible stories that mine the complexities of modern relationships and the unexpected ways love manifests itself.
Marisa Silver dazzled and inspired readers with her critically acclaimed The God of War (a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist), praised by Richard Russo as “a novel of great metaphorical depth and beauty.” In this elegant, finely wrought new collection, Alone With You, Silver has created eight indelible stories that mine the complexities of modern relationships and the unexpected ways love manifests itself. Her brilliantly etched characters confront life’s abrupt and unsettling changes with fear, courage, humor, and overwhelming grace.
In the O. Henry Prize–winning story “The Visitor,” a VA hospital nurse’s aide contends with a family ghost and discovers the ways in which her own past haunts her. The reticent father in “Pond” is confronted with a Solomonic choice that pits his love for his daughter against his feelings for her young son. In “Night Train to Frankfurt,” first published in The New Yorker, a daughter travels to an alternative-medicine clinic in Germany in a gambit to save her mother’s life. And in the title story, a woman vacations in Morocco with her family while contemplating a decision that will both ruin and liberate them all.
From “Temporary,” where a young woman confronts the ephemeral nature of companionship, to “Three Girls,” in which sisters trapped in a snowstorm recognize the boundaries of childhood, the nuanced voices of Alone With You bear the hallmarks of an instant classic from a writer with unerring talent and imaginative resource. Silver has the extraordinary ability to render her fictional inhabitants instantly relatable, in all their imperfections. Her stories have the singular quality of looking in a mirror. We see at once what is familiar and what is strange. In these stirring narratives, we meet ourselves anew.
Marisa Silver dazzled and inspired readers with her critically acclaimed The God of War (a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist), praised by Richard Russo as “a novel of great metaphorical depth and beauty.” In this elegant, finely wrought new collection, Alone With You, Silver has created eight indelible stories that mine the complexities of modern relationships and the unexpected ways love manifests itself. Her brilliantly etched characters confront life’s abrupt and unsettling changes with fear, courage, humor, and overwhelming grace.
In the O. Henry Prize–winning story “The Visitor,” a VA hospital nurse’s aide contends with a family ghost and discovers the ways in which her own past haunts her. The reticent father in “Pond” is confronted with a Solomonic choice that pits his love for his daughter against his feelings for her young son. In “Night Train to Frankfurt,” first published in The New Yorker, a daughter travels to an alternative-medicine clinic in Germany in a gambit to save her mother’s life. And in the title story, a woman vacations in Morocco with her family while contemplating a decision that will both ruin and liberate them all.
From “Temporary,” where a young woman confronts the ephemeral nature of companionship, to “Three Girls,” in which sisters trapped in a snowstorm recognize the boundaries of childhood, the nuanced voices of Alone With You bear the hallmarks of an instant classic from a writer with unerring talent and imaginative resource. Silver has the extraordinary ability to render her fictional inhabitants instantly relatable, in all their imperfections. Her stories have the singular quality of looking in a mirror. We see at once what is familiar and what is strange. In these stirring narratives, we meet ourselves anew.
164 pages, Hardcover
First published April 13, 2010
About the author
Marisa Silver
22 books258 followersMarisa Silver is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel,
Mary Coin
(published by Blue Rider Press, March 7th, 2013).
Marisa Silver directed her first film, Old Enough, while she studied at Harvard University. The film won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 1984, when Silver was 23. Silver went on to direct three more feature films, Permanent Record (1988), with Keanu Reeves, Vital Signs (1990) and He Said, She Said (1991), with Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth Perkins. The latter was co-directed with her husband-to-be, Ken Kwapis.
After making her career in Hollywood, she switched her profession and entered graduate school to become a short story writer. Her first short story appeared in The New Yorker magazine in 2000 and subsequently several more stories have been published there.
Silver also published the short-story collection, Babe in Paradise, in 2001. That collection was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and was a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year. A story from the collection was included in The Best American Short Stories 2000. In 2005, she published No Direction Home and in 2008, The God of War was published to great acclaim.
Marisa Silver directed her first film, Old Enough, while she studied at Harvard University. The film won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 1984, when Silver was 23. Silver went on to direct three more feature films, Permanent Record (1988), with Keanu Reeves, Vital Signs (1990) and He Said, She Said (1991), with Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth Perkins. The latter was co-directed with her husband-to-be, Ken Kwapis.
After making her career in Hollywood, she switched her profession and entered graduate school to become a short story writer. Her first short story appeared in The New Yorker magazine in 2000 and subsequently several more stories have been published there.
Silver also published the short-story collection, Babe in Paradise, in 2001. That collection was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and was a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year. A story from the collection was included in The Best American Short Stories 2000. In 2005, she published No Direction Home and in 2008, The God of War was published to great acclaim.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 71 reviews
November 26, 2018
3 and 1/2 stars (for what I think is an uneven collection)
I don't know if these stories were written over several years, but I'd bet I could guess which ones came before others. While some of the stories are stupendous, a few, even while carrying some original insights, jarred with lazy or facile phrasing here and there that took me out of what I was reading. Perhaps I was dissatisfied with those few, because I'd read "Night Train to Frankfurt" in The New Yorker (also included here and worth the reread) and it had set the bar so high.
Despite the disappointments, I learned some new things and feel this book is certainly worth the read, especially for stories like "Pond" and "In the New World." Both featuring a father dealing with a child growing up, they are wonderful stories with marvelous writing.
I don't know if these stories were written over several years, but I'd bet I could guess which ones came before others. While some of the stories are stupendous, a few, even while carrying some original insights, jarred with lazy or facile phrasing here and there that took me out of what I was reading. Perhaps I was dissatisfied with those few, because I'd read "Night Train to Frankfurt" in The New Yorker (also included here and worth the reread) and it had set the bar so high.
Despite the disappointments, I learned some new things and feel this book is certainly worth the read, especially for stories like "Pond" and "In the New World." Both featuring a father dealing with a child growing up, they are wonderful stories with marvelous writing.
September 2, 2013
I’ve seen many great reactions to Marisa Silver’s other books, so I picked this up to try her out. Uneven, but still impressive. The first few of these eight stories left me fairly cold, but I absolutely loved the other four, so it gets 4 stars overall. Most of the stories revolve around parent-child relationships.
My favorites:
“Pond” examines a father’s conflicted feelings about his twenty-something daughter who is autistic and little more than a child herself when she gets pregnant during an unsupervised moment at her day care facility. The grandchild, who is completely healthy and normal, makes his affection for Martha more complicated. Burton’s relationship with Martha and with his grandson reveals itself as something more than he had supposed in the wake of a near disaster.
Gary’s perfection hurt Burton in a physical way. He felt as he did when he watched a theorem unfold seamlessly, the sheer elegance of it almost painful to witness because is presence in the world threw into high relief the incomprehensible mess of his life.
In “Night Train to Frankfurt” a grown daughter accompanies her cancer-stricken mother to a facility in Germany where an alternative treatment offers a last-ditch hope to the ordinarily super-practical and realistic Dorothy.
She proclaimed, if not a belief in, at least a tolerance for this latest of her mother’s nonmedical solutions to “the cancer problem.” This was how Dorothy referred to her illness, as if it were a tangled political issue that might be written about on the editorial page of her beloved New York Times, and then hotly discussed with the butcher or the man at the shoe-repair place when she went out each day on her brisk round of errands.
Helen tries to guess at Dorothy’s motives in pursing this uncharacteristic course when she has always been the most predictable of women, while she deals with her own disappointment at failing as a professional musician. On the train journey,
Helen apologized for the jolts to her mother’s body, for the cold smack of air that greeted them on the platform, for the distance they had to cross to reach the cab stand, until she realized that what she really meant to apologize for was the fact that no amount of flinty-eyed pragmatism would help Dorothy through this moment. The fact of simply being was sometimes an unbearable mess and what was hoped for in life was so rarely reached. The shortfall between those two things was so much more fumbling and base than anything Helen could ever have imagined.
“In the New World" a Polish immigrant to the U.S. and owner of a small construction company has problems negotiating relationships with his well-to-do clients and with his teenage son who has gotten a girl pregnant. Anticipating his son’s future reactions to unfolding events, he dips into the past, remembers his relationship with own father, his father’s grief at losing three other children, and understands the universality of parental fear for one’s children.
The title story, "Alone With You," opens with Marie walking with a camel across the Sahara. She has had mental health issues and has come on this trip with her husband, son, and son’s girlfriend, ostensibly as “an adventure,” but actually so she can work out some answers to questions of her own.
They had come halfway around the world to have “an experience.” And yet, there were moments when she felt more ephemeral than ever, when the gaudiness of this experience-hoarding made her all the more unsure of what it meant to be living.
The lack of authenticity in the tourist experience juxtaposed with her struggle to hold on to her own identity leads her to a decision before the trip is over.
My favorites:
“Pond” examines a father’s conflicted feelings about his twenty-something daughter who is autistic and little more than a child herself when she gets pregnant during an unsupervised moment at her day care facility. The grandchild, who is completely healthy and normal, makes his affection for Martha more complicated. Burton’s relationship with Martha and with his grandson reveals itself as something more than he had supposed in the wake of a near disaster.
Gary’s perfection hurt Burton in a physical way. He felt as he did when he watched a theorem unfold seamlessly, the sheer elegance of it almost painful to witness because is presence in the world threw into high relief the incomprehensible mess of his life.
In “Night Train to Frankfurt” a grown daughter accompanies her cancer-stricken mother to a facility in Germany where an alternative treatment offers a last-ditch hope to the ordinarily super-practical and realistic Dorothy.
She proclaimed, if not a belief in, at least a tolerance for this latest of her mother’s nonmedical solutions to “the cancer problem.” This was how Dorothy referred to her illness, as if it were a tangled political issue that might be written about on the editorial page of her beloved New York Times, and then hotly discussed with the butcher or the man at the shoe-repair place when she went out each day on her brisk round of errands.
Helen tries to guess at Dorothy’s motives in pursing this uncharacteristic course when she has always been the most predictable of women, while she deals with her own disappointment at failing as a professional musician. On the train journey,
Helen apologized for the jolts to her mother’s body, for the cold smack of air that greeted them on the platform, for the distance they had to cross to reach the cab stand, until she realized that what she really meant to apologize for was the fact that no amount of flinty-eyed pragmatism would help Dorothy through this moment. The fact of simply being was sometimes an unbearable mess and what was hoped for in life was so rarely reached. The shortfall between those two things was so much more fumbling and base than anything Helen could ever have imagined.
“In the New World" a Polish immigrant to the U.S. and owner of a small construction company has problems negotiating relationships with his well-to-do clients and with his teenage son who has gotten a girl pregnant. Anticipating his son’s future reactions to unfolding events, he dips into the past, remembers his relationship with own father, his father’s grief at losing three other children, and understands the universality of parental fear for one’s children.
The title story, "Alone With You," opens with Marie walking with a camel across the Sahara. She has had mental health issues and has come on this trip with her husband, son, and son’s girlfriend, ostensibly as “an adventure,” but actually so she can work out some answers to questions of her own.
They had come halfway around the world to have “an experience.” And yet, there were moments when she felt more ephemeral than ever, when the gaudiness of this experience-hoarding made her all the more unsure of what it meant to be living.
The lack of authenticity in the tourist experience juxtaposed with her struggle to hold on to her own identity leads her to a decision before the trip is over.
June 13, 2010
You can see sunlight through Silver's prose. It's like a spider's web without the cloy. But suddenly you're in tears. As I read I kept looking back at the cover art of Hopper's `Sunlight In Cafeteria' with his characteristic use of light flowing across a casually gussied up woman and a suit clad, bespectacled man who gazes at her as she looks down at her coffee. They sit opposite one another but at different tables, both alone and separate though just a few feet from one another lost in their own thoughts. What a perfect metaphor for how Silver's people bumble around trying their best to do the right thing and then find themselves caught up in another's life they try and make sense of what's happening and how to make things better. One of my favorite stories was `Night Train to Frankfurt' where a cancer patient and her grown daughter go to a German facility for a last ditch alternative treatment. Her daughter realizes just how ill her mom is and tries to ease her mental and physical pain. The worst is neither knows what to do with their hope. Hope that this treatment might work while being hyper aware that this is likely the last of their time together.
I've already said her prose is wonderful but here are a few bits that stood out:
"(She) carried the flesh of her late childhood with her into adolescence just in case, as though she had overpacked, not knowing what she would need."
Another:
""You're going to hurt me, aren't you? You're going to leave"
(He) looked pained. "I love her. I'm sorry"
His clarity rendered her speechless. How could she have known that the bed thing she would never recover from would be love?"
What a writer! I kept looking for the seams to figure out how she accomplished it but couldn't find them.
I've already said her prose is wonderful but here are a few bits that stood out:
"(She) carried the flesh of her late childhood with her into adolescence just in case, as though she had overpacked, not knowing what she would need."
Another:
""You're going to hurt me, aren't you? You're going to leave"
(He) looked pained. "I love her. I'm sorry"
His clarity rendered her speechless. How could she have known that the bed thing she would never recover from would be love?"
What a writer! I kept looking for the seams to figure out how she accomplished it but couldn't find them.
May 5, 2010
There are the books you admire because they're excellent examples of the kind of book you also write. And then there are the books you admire because you could never have written them in a million years. Marisa Silver's short story collection, Alone With You falls firmly in the latter category. I'm taken by the oblique way she tells a story--trusting the reader's mind to put together the small pieces of a collage into a satisfying whole. The impact of these low-key stories surprised me, how the details of their parts built up into that big, often contradictory emotion. No easy answers here. The stories are all about people in their most intimate relationships--families, marriages--and the room for individual interpretation that's available at such close range. Subtle and masterful, a kind of book I could never hope to write.
June 12, 2010
Another forgettable short story collection! I remember that one tale had some arty types living in a loft, and someone had cancer in one of them, and there was also maybe a camel. Other than that, there were the typical unresolved endings and a lot of spoiled, unpleasant people being spoiled and unpleasant. Nine times out of ten, I should just stop with the modern short story collections, huh? But that one time...that elusive one time...! Dammit. We all already know that I never learn.
September 16, 2010
I’m disappointed with this collection of short stories. Formulaic in structure and subject matter, Marisa Silver does have a strong voice and possesses a subtle way of revealing emotional layers through her characters. However, none of them spoke to me in a powerful way.
November 17, 2010
The last two stories were pretty good. The author is a good short story writer, I just didn't care for the stories that much. They don't stick with you like Elizabeth Strout or Ron Rash or Ethin Canin or Tim Winton. Maybe if the subject matter were a little more compelling....
April 25, 2010
Snapshots of relationships. Left me hanging.
July 13, 2011
“Their ski lift tickets were attached to the zippers of their jackets like price tags” (68).
I could have given this 2.5 stars; it is well-written, just not terribly interesting.
I could have given this 2.5 stars; it is well-written, just not terribly interesting.
May 1, 2011
Lovely, but somehow forgettable...
September 8, 2013
(1.3/5.0) Insubstantial and often exhausted.
December 6, 2017
Onvan : Alone With You - Nevisande : Marisa Silver - ISBN : 1416590293 - ISBN13 : 9781416590293 - Dar 164 Safhe - Saal e Chap : 2010
December 24, 2022
Oaxaca breakfast lunch and dinner date. la ultima historia me recordo a Luciana
November 3, 2013
I read really fast and was expecting to finish this small, 153-page book relatively quickly, all the more that it’s a collection of short stories.
How wrong I was.
Alone With You: Stories is one of the most compelling and honest portrayals of human nature written by a (relatively) new author that I have read in a long time. Emotions are treated like the multidimensional and exquisitely complex things they are rather than the boiled down version we are often treated to in contemporary literature. The intricacies of these short stories are so masterfully weaved together that they form a seamless tapestry reflecting raw slivers of contemporary Americana. The harshness of some of the stories is blunted by the skill with which Marisa Silver presents them to the reader.
Each story is like a rich truffle; with an incredible variety of points of view (the latch-kid child, the mother of a mentally challenged child, the father of a teen, the daughter whose mother is dying, the woman with a mental illness, the woman whose husband leaves her for another, the patient attendant at a VA hospital) it is certain that at least one character will strike particularly close to home for every reader.
The intricacies of the stories in Alone With You, seemingly easily put together, are also a testament to the acuity of the author’s perception. She is as skilled an observer as she is a writer, and the two combine to create these incredible adventures into the darker side of human nature while managing at the same time to remain delightfully lighthearted. The father who hit his son in anger; the friend who sleeps with her roommate’s boyfriend; the mentally challenged young woman impregnated by Down syndrome patient: these actions are treated like burdens to be carried rather than over-the-top melodramatic events. In an era of sensationalism, it’s quite refreshing.
Even more refreshing is that the characters in Alone With You are far from perfect; some of them can actually make the reader quite uncomfortable. Amongst other things that can make readers uncomfortable are the little shocks as the characters are openly curious about typically taboo things, especially for women. I fidgeted when I read about Sheila in “Leap,” a preteen thrilled at the attention of a sexual predator. My friend’s button was pushed in “The Visitor,” when Candy is fascinated by the different gashes, wounds, and stumps of VA hospital patients.
But these beautifully weaved tales of surprising introspective quality turn these situations into occasions to reflect on human nature, be it our own or others’. They also will leave you feeling uplifted as the characters, of all ages and both genders, display a sense of strength as they go through mundane, day to day hardships of life without losing the ability to reflect and grow from their experiences.
The word “slivers” has been previously used to describe the tales in this collection, and appropriately so. Each short story shares enough about each character and her situation that the reader can empathize without getting too emotionally involved, thus hampering our ability to reflect in a dispassionate way. I was reminded of literary para-sailing as I worked my way through Alone With You, since just like the author with her stories, you don’t know when and where the wind will pick you up and where it’ll take you, but you know that you are going to enjoy the process and gain a lot from it.
Alone with you is a fantastic collection of short stories that will give readers insights into the human psyche, whether it is evoked by the characters, or the secondary figures. These often dryly humorous stories are introspective in an unsentimental way, making them all the more powerful, while overall, Marisa Silver’s work remains humble yet moving, lending it strength and significance.
(First published on Blogcritics and http://saharsreviews.wordpress.com)
How wrong I was.
Alone With You: Stories is one of the most compelling and honest portrayals of human nature written by a (relatively) new author that I have read in a long time. Emotions are treated like the multidimensional and exquisitely complex things they are rather than the boiled down version we are often treated to in contemporary literature. The intricacies of these short stories are so masterfully weaved together that they form a seamless tapestry reflecting raw slivers of contemporary Americana. The harshness of some of the stories is blunted by the skill with which Marisa Silver presents them to the reader.
Each story is like a rich truffle; with an incredible variety of points of view (the latch-kid child, the mother of a mentally challenged child, the father of a teen, the daughter whose mother is dying, the woman with a mental illness, the woman whose husband leaves her for another, the patient attendant at a VA hospital) it is certain that at least one character will strike particularly close to home for every reader.
The intricacies of the stories in Alone With You, seemingly easily put together, are also a testament to the acuity of the author’s perception. She is as skilled an observer as she is a writer, and the two combine to create these incredible adventures into the darker side of human nature while managing at the same time to remain delightfully lighthearted. The father who hit his son in anger; the friend who sleeps with her roommate’s boyfriend; the mentally challenged young woman impregnated by Down syndrome patient: these actions are treated like burdens to be carried rather than over-the-top melodramatic events. In an era of sensationalism, it’s quite refreshing.
Even more refreshing is that the characters in Alone With You are far from perfect; some of them can actually make the reader quite uncomfortable. Amongst other things that can make readers uncomfortable are the little shocks as the characters are openly curious about typically taboo things, especially for women. I fidgeted when I read about Sheila in “Leap,” a preteen thrilled at the attention of a sexual predator. My friend’s button was pushed in “The Visitor,” when Candy is fascinated by the different gashes, wounds, and stumps of VA hospital patients.
But these beautifully weaved tales of surprising introspective quality turn these situations into occasions to reflect on human nature, be it our own or others’. They also will leave you feeling uplifted as the characters, of all ages and both genders, display a sense of strength as they go through mundane, day to day hardships of life without losing the ability to reflect and grow from their experiences.
The word “slivers” has been previously used to describe the tales in this collection, and appropriately so. Each short story shares enough about each character and her situation that the reader can empathize without getting too emotionally involved, thus hampering our ability to reflect in a dispassionate way. I was reminded of literary para-sailing as I worked my way through Alone With You, since just like the author with her stories, you don’t know when and where the wind will pick you up and where it’ll take you, but you know that you are going to enjoy the process and gain a lot from it.
Alone with you is a fantastic collection of short stories that will give readers insights into the human psyche, whether it is evoked by the characters, or the secondary figures. These often dryly humorous stories are introspective in an unsentimental way, making them all the more powerful, while overall, Marisa Silver’s work remains humble yet moving, lending it strength and significance.
(First published on Blogcritics and http://saharsreviews.wordpress.com)
July 20, 2014
For the most part, I thought that the stories in this collection lacked in both focus and resolution, with Silver's simple language and focus on ordinary domestic characters in unextraordinary circumstances contributing to this meandering feeling.
But! The last two stories, "In the New World" and the title story, "Alone With You," were fantastic. Both are similar in motif, in part about a parent observing his or her teenage or young adult son's awakening to the opposite sex. Where Silver takes each of the stories from there is vastly different, though both stories have a tightness of focus (without being obvious) that made them satisfying.
"Alone With You" especially was unforgettable. In this story, a mother is on vacation in Morocco with her husband, her reserved 20 year old son and his ebullient girlfriend. Silver is at her best writing about this girl, who has the "magnetic property of the self-involved" and "carries [the son:] away in her squall, his heart tossed this way and that." The mother also observes the way that her similarly reserved husband reacts to this girl, everyone drawn to her liveliness. If you find yourself becoming discouraged by the rest of the collection as I did for similar reasons, I'd advise sticking it through to the end.
But! The last two stories, "In the New World" and the title story, "Alone With You," were fantastic. Both are similar in motif, in part about a parent observing his or her teenage or young adult son's awakening to the opposite sex. Where Silver takes each of the stories from there is vastly different, though both stories have a tightness of focus (without being obvious) that made them satisfying.
"Alone With You" especially was unforgettable. In this story, a mother is on vacation in Morocco with her husband, her reserved 20 year old son and his ebullient girlfriend. Silver is at her best writing about this girl, who has the "magnetic property of the self-involved" and "carries [the son:] away in her squall, his heart tossed this way and that." The mother also observes the way that her similarly reserved husband reacts to this girl, everyone drawn to her liveliness. If you find yourself becoming discouraged by the rest of the collection as I did for similar reasons, I'd advise sticking it through to the end.
May 31, 2011
These are very lovely short stories, haunting and tinged with melancholy, though never despairing or maudlin in any way. We watch as the various characters come to see themselves more fully, as unexpected events bring life into sharper, sometimes startling focus. Each story is separate and yet similar in theme, as the beautifully and well-named title reveals. This collection is about the ways in which couples and families connect and the circumstances and character flaws that keep them from connecting more deeply.
I stayed up late finishing this last night and I already miss it. I started "The God of War" by the same author, and while it is a very interesting story, it lacks the spare, poetic perfection of the short stories. In a good short story, every detail is essential. The powerful insight in each of these short stories come after just a few pages, wheras, with the novel, its a much bigger wind up. Short stories may just be more my speed at the moment.
Anyway, very happy to have discovered this writer! She's amazing! :)
I stayed up late finishing this last night and I already miss it. I started "The God of War" by the same author, and while it is a very interesting story, it lacks the spare, poetic perfection of the short stories. In a good short story, every detail is essential. The powerful insight in each of these short stories come after just a few pages, wheras, with the novel, its a much bigger wind up. Short stories may just be more my speed at the moment.
Anyway, very happy to have discovered this writer! She's amazing! :)
July 18, 2010
I really never thought I cared much for short stories until this summer. I guess I just hadn't been reading the right collections. ...
Marisa Silver's writing is amazing. You can really see the work that she had to put forth to develop these short stories so that the characters and the plot were able to unfold, without being allowed the latitude to fill each story with the fluff that flies around in so many novels. The constraints of this form really showcased her writing talent. (I think it would be interesting to compare her novel to these stories and see how it holds up.) Reading a story from this collection, I was reminded of sitting in a museum and just studying a single painting for several minutes. Each story was a scene, without much of a beginning or resolution, but still complete in the telling of its tale. Highly recommended.
Marisa Silver's writing is amazing. You can really see the work that she had to put forth to develop these short stories so that the characters and the plot were able to unfold, without being allowed the latitude to fill each story with the fluff that flies around in so many novels. The constraints of this form really showcased her writing talent. (I think it would be interesting to compare her novel to these stories and see how it holds up.) Reading a story from this collection, I was reminded of sitting in a museum and just studying a single painting for several minutes. Each story was a scene, without much of a beginning or resolution, but still complete in the telling of its tale. Highly recommended.
November 30, 2012
Marisa Silver is a talented writer who notices the quiet details of everyday life. She is adept at bringing disparate situations to life with vivid details and sharp dialogue. In each story, she toggles back and forth between different situations and times, ultimately bringing the two pieces together into one coherent whole to highlight some sort of lesson learned in sharp relief. This technique is more effective in some stories than others. While I thought Silver's observations and dialogue were generally sound and credible, I did wish she had written more action into the stories. In both "Pond" and "In the New World," the climaxes of the stories feel anticlimactic and the reader is left wondering what the characters will do next. Even a sentence or two would have highlighted the impact of the lesson to more devastating effect.
March 2, 2011
Marisa Silver's talent is undeniable. She writes about alienation, confusion, and intimacy with precision, clarity, and intelligence. My favorite stories were "Temporary" and "Alone With You." I'm giving this collection three stars because it was safe and lacked variety; all the stories are written in close third, all of them are cluttered with distracting similes, and all of them employ the same structure of jumping back and forth in time till the past and the present collide the final few pages. Also, because her male characters were so emotionally inarticulate so consistently, they often seemed one-dimensional. And this is a weird comment, but every story seemed to have an obligatory sex scene or description of a penis and/or naked body. Not that I'm complaining? Just something I noticed.
January 7, 2012
Most of the stories are about women's relationships to one another and to the men in their life, with the exception of a story about a Polish laborer and his son. The themes are heavy - death and disfigurement, Down's syndrome, infidelity - but their gentle and honest treatment left me feeling somehow lighter. All of her characters find some way to carry on, like Dorothy in "Night Train to Frankfurt" as she stumbles outside the clinic that houses a last-ditch effort to battle cancer: "The path through this complicated piece of life, which must have seemed so clear just a few days ago, was now as inscrutable as a piece of music could be when first confronted - a wild and alien language of signs that seemed like the ravings of a madman until you put your hands on the keys and played one note, then the next, then the next."
May 21, 2012
The first 3 stories are bad and the next 3 are atrocious, with infidelity and defects of body or mind driving every single plot. The book was well on its way to a 1-star rating when Silver pulled it together to actually write one good story, "In the New World", in which she deftly handles the thoughts of a Polish immigrant contractor as he traverses a relationship with his wife and irresponsible son, along with a potentially difficult client. This was the only story during which I thought Silver "got it" in terms of actually framing a situation and finding the emotion and logic that would play out in it. Read this one, and perhaps the title story that closes the book, but skip the rest.
June 12, 2014
This slim volume has many treats in store for the reader. The stories are rather simple, but are quite provocative as well. The author has the rare ability to create characters and make them so real, with all their foibles, so that you fell you have met someone new by the end of each story. My favorite involves a middle-aged woman traveling with her ill mother through Germany (Night Train to Frankfurt) in search of a clinic to receive a "miracle" cure for the mother's terminal cancer. The author is able to deal with all sorts of internal and external situations that are all related to the basic theme but make the stories so much more universal. She really is a wonderful writer.
November 1, 2010
Short stories are sad. Well, these ones are. I'm still thinking about the title story, which ends the book. These were beautifully crafted, but sometimes so well-crafted that it was difficult not to notice the craft, and lose myself in the story, which is my favorite part of reading, so this was not my favorite reading experience. I feel like a need a unicorn chaser of happy endings. Maybe fall is just too sad a season to read this book. Which was good! You should read it! With peppy music in the background, maybe.
May 18, 2012
Silver writes good prose and is especially fond of the simile, but she also litters her stories with generic rhetoric that doesn't contribute to the characters or plot. She also uses the same voice for every story, so, instead of reading various stories about mothers, wives, and daughters losing their connection to their lives, I felt as if I was reading the same story over and over. Only "In the New World" - the only story told from a man's point of view - stayed with me.
July 4, 2012
I couldnt decide whether to give this book 2 or 3 stars. My expectations were high for this book. I felt that I was enjoying it at first, but then realized that the stories became less interesting. None of the characters were gripping and some elements of the plot were repetitive throughout the book. I especially did not like the way most of the stories ended. For the most part they seemed unfinished and wishy washy.
December 10, 2017
There are some strong pieces in this collection, but it’s uneven on the whole. The stories are written with an extreme subtlety that I found impressive in places but may not be satisfying to readers who prefer clearly announced themes and tidy conclusions. I’m curious how this compares to Silver’s other books, so I plan to read another.
November 22, 2013
This is a beautiful collection of short stories. Several times I would read back over a line or passage to fully appreciate the beauty. Silver's writing is graceful and I was disappointed that several of the stories ended. I wanted to read more and know how things resolved for her characters. A gem.
May 8, 2010
Marisa Silver really understands the human experience, an understanding that is present throughout each of the stories in this collection. Not since I've read the work of Raymond Carver have I felt so deeply for characters.
June 13, 2010
These stories reminded me just a wee bit of Amy Bloom. Wistful. Sad, but not annihilating. These people disappoint each other, and live with this disappointment and the loneliness it brings. Really beautifully done.
August 13, 2010
The stories in this book are beautiful and heartbreaking, just like good short stories should be. The characters quickly wormed their way into my heart as they dealt with tragic but everyday issues, and they stayed there after the stories were finished.
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