Customer Reviews

In My Other Life: Stories

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In her collection of short stories, Joan Silber probes the complexities of emotion that are trigerred by relationships as they change with time. A central theme of each of the stories is the changes in peoples lives as they grow older: The different people that we become despite remaining the same person with, perhaps, the same issues. In one story, a woman artist struggles with her passivity in having allowed herself to fall into a relationship turned marriage of immigration convenience. Years later, unable to extricate herself from a unsatisfying marriage to a besotted Englsihman, she resigns herself to a life she could have avoided had she marshalled the courage an uncle of hers evinced many years earlier when he finally unloaded his inveterately obnoxious wife. In another story, a hipster restauranteaur in Manhattan's trendy Lower East Side struggles with the tragic death of a mentaly fragile family member and, in yet another, a now Yuppie realtor on Manhattan's Upper West Side recounts his hippie days working in a downtown restaurant. This is a book for the reader who wants to delve into psychodynamics and enjoys the downtowmn Manhattan life. Ms. Silber may strike a chord in your own life, as she did with me. I highly recommend this book.

The most amazing thing about this book is that within the first few sentences of each story, you find yourself completely immersed in these peoples lives. Some of the characters are familiar, perhaps people you used to know but you've lost touch with over the years. Others are people you know you would have never spent time with, but are fascinated by their experiences. Silber is skilled at describing ordinary experiences in eloquent and sometimes very funny ways. I highly recommend this book of short stories to anyone who has stopped to relect about how their lives could have been if....

In My Other Life gets at the truth of people's lives. The stories are trying to do something new and wonderful. They don't have the cliches associated with so much fiction, instead they resemble the way we all come to understand how our lives have become what they are. No great dramatic events...just quiet realizations about what we really are. Silber is really truthful in her writing, and reveals how characters are thinking and feeling so that they seem really alive. A reader can learn a lot about living from this book.