Good Reads / Community Library Notes
Improvement
Joan Silber
Review by Priscilla Comen
Improvement
Joan Silber
Review by Priscilla Comen
Improvement by Joan Silber is the tale of Reyna, a young woman, her aunt Kiki, and many of their adventures. Reyna’s boyfriend, Boyd, is at Riker’s Island prison, serving time. Reyna and her son visit him there. When Boyd gets out, he talks Reyna into joining him and his buddies into smuggling cigarettes across state lines to Virginia from New York. When Reyna says she won’t drive the car filled with cigarettes, Claude offers to drive.
Claude meets and falls in love with a girl on one of his trips to Virginia. We also meet Teddy who is married to Leah, but visits his first wife, Sally, who lives on his trucking route. They make love during each trip. Leah never knows. Kiki goes to Turkey, meets and marries Osman. After many years there, she returns to New York with several valuable Turkish rugs. She sells them to support herself. Meanwhile, Claude has an accident while driving . His girlfriend in Virginia never hears from him again. Author Silber’s plot and characters are all over the map in a delightful, crazy way. It’s a bumpy ride, called “refreshing” by critics. She received a Guggenheim fellowship and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Dieter, Bruno, and Steffi travel from Germany to Turkey to pick up artifacts to sell to dealers for a profit. Will they meet Kiki? Monika comes on the scene, and we learn Bruno is her brother. She sees him when she goes to Berlin to visit her mother who has had a heart attack. Her mother is Steffi from the Turkish story. Yvette, Claude’s sister, works at a salon shaping eyebrows. She’d love to have her own shop and Claude promises her the money when he gets rich. Reyna wants to give it to her. She sends thousands in an unmarked envelope. When Yvette opens her new shop, she thanks a miracle for her success. Reyna knows Claude would have been pleased.
The characters are quirky and smart. This is a good read. Find it on the new fiction shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.
Claude meets and falls in love with a girl on one of his trips to Virginia. We also meet Teddy who is married to Leah, but visits his first wife, Sally, who lives on his trucking route. They make love during each trip. Leah never knows. Kiki goes to Turkey, meets and marries Osman. After many years there, she returns to New York with several valuable Turkish rugs. She sells them to support herself. Meanwhile, Claude has an accident while driving . His girlfriend in Virginia never hears from him again. Author Silber’s plot and characters are all over the map in a delightful, crazy way. It’s a bumpy ride, called “refreshing” by critics. She received a Guggenheim fellowship and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Dieter, Bruno, and Steffi travel from Germany to Turkey to pick up artifacts to sell to dealers for a profit. Will they meet Kiki? Monika comes on the scene, and we learn Bruno is her brother. She sees him when she goes to Berlin to visit her mother who has had a heart attack. Her mother is Steffi from the Turkish story. Yvette, Claude’s sister, works at a salon shaping eyebrows. She’d love to have her own shop and Claude promises her the money when he gets rich. Reyna wants to give it to her. She sends thousands in an unmarked envelope. When Yvette opens her new shop, she thanks a miracle for her success. Reyna knows Claude would have been pleased.
The characters are quirky and smart. This is a good read. Find it on the new fiction shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.