{"title":"Joan Silber","description":"Joan Silber is the author of ten books of fiction. Her first novel won the PEN\/ Hemingway Award in 1981; she's also received the National Book Critics Circle Award and the PEN\/Faulkner Award. Her stories have appeared in The New Yorker and other magazines, and she's received the PEN\/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. She taught for many years at Sarah Lawrence College and in the Warren Wilson College MFA Program. She lives in Manhattan, on the Lower East Side, with her dog Jolie.","products":[{"product_id":"in-the-city-paperback","title":"In the City - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe rediscovered second novel from National Book Critics Circle Award-winning writer Joan Silber--a wry, exquisitely told story of self-invention in 1920s New York\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLike all young people who move to Manhattan from elsewhere, Pauline sees her arrival in the city as an escape from the provincial entrapments of home. She seeks something more than her quiet life with her rough-mannered family in bucolic Newark, New Jersey: a frugal but free-wheeling existence among the artists, writers, and musicians flocking to the city in the 1920s, a life filled with books, impassioned conversation, and unencumbered sex.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003ePauline falls in with an ostentatious group of friends who spend their nights in speakeasies and all-night cafes in Greenwich Village, exemplars of the bohemian life. There is Nita, an outspoken violinist who wants a rich husband; Rose, who lives in a hotel, waiting for her married lover to call; Peter, a painter with roving interests; and Walter, wealthy, older, and forever divorcing his wife. Yet even among these new friends, life in the city is grueling. Pauline can hardly afford food and clothing; the room she rents is cramped and mildewy. She becomes involved with a set of arrogant men: a self-proclaimed writer more interested in spending other people's money than producing anything meaningful, and a handsome recluse unable to stomach her libertine lifestyle. Pauline's effort to disentangle herself from these relationships and the elusive ideal of living young and free in the city forms a wry, finely-observed, and moving portrait of a woman's self-making.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eOriginally published in 1987, \u003ci\u003eIn the City\u003c\/i\u003e is a sharp, emotionally sophisticated portrait of a young woman trying to claim a life of her own in an indifferent world. With its nuance and quiet power, the novel reveals the clarity, wit, and emotional precision that have defined Joan Silber's celebrated body of work ever since.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50101931180255,"sku":"9781965028049","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/IT_RMb9Jw9781965028049.webp?v=1781075910"},{"product_id":"mercy-hardcover","title":"Mercy - Hardcover","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA rich and nuanced story beginning with a moment of fear and abandonment that will reverberate across decades and change the course of many lives, by a beloved PEN\/Faulkner and National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn the gritty East Village of 1970s New York, Ivan and his best friend, Eddie, a popular local bartender, are dabbling in drugs following a short tour of Europe. One night, as Ivan and Eddie experiment with heroin, things go horribly wrong. In a panic, Ivan rushes Eddie to a crowded local ER and, believing his friend is about to die, makes the awful choice to leave him there. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThis one act of abandonment haunts Ivan his entire life. He keeps this secret from his friends and later his family, forever searching for mercy from \"a remorse that never dies.\" Ivan's decision also ripples across time through an extended community, affecting a host of other people unknowingly connected to that night. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFollowing a bold cast of characters across decades, and set against the changing social and sexual mores from the 1970s onward, \u003ci\u003eMercy\u003c\/i\u003e is Silber's most ambitious and expansive novel yet, proving once again how we are all connected in mysterious and often unknown ways.","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50102867460319,"sku":"9781640097070","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/0ROiM-b2CS9781640097070.webp?v=1781087506"}],"url":"https:\/\/blackandbarhe.com\/collections\/joan-silber.oembed","provider":"Black \u0026 Barhe Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}