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A NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALISTNamed 1 of 50 Notable Works of Fiction in 2017 by The Washington Post
Named 1 of 10 Top Fiction Titles of 2017 by the Wall Street Journal
A Newsday Best Book of 2017
A Kirkus Best Book of 2017
A New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice
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 isnt 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 nieces 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 Kikis beloved Turkish rugs, as colorful as the tattoos decorating Reynas body, with narrative twists and turns as surprising and unexpected as the lives all around us. The Boston Globe says of Joan Silber: "No other writer can make a few small decisions ripple across the globe, and across time, with more subtlety and power." Improvement is Silbers most shining achievement yet.
"Without fuss or flourishes, Joan Silber weaves a remarkably patterned tapestry connecting strangers from around the world to a central tragic car accident. The writing here is funny and down-to-earth, the characters are recognizably fallible, and the message is quietly profound: We are not ever really alone, however lonely we feel." The Wall Street Journal, 1 of 10 top fiction titles of 2017
"[I]t feels vital to love Silbers work. . . Now is the moment to appreciate that she is here, in our midst: our countrys own Alice Munro. Silbers great theme as a writer is the way in which humans are separated from their intentions, by desires, ideas, time. . . Like Grace Paley and Lucia Berlin, shes a master of talking a story past its easiest meaning; like Munro, a master of the compression and dilation of time, what time and nothing else can reveal to people about themselves." Washington Post