Böcker av Jen Silverman

'As funny as it's intellectual, this page-turner about crashing and burning is spot-on about ambition, infatuation, theatre, film, ethics, teens, and everything else.' Emma Donoghue, author of Room 'Witty...Earnest...Laugh-out-loud...Pitch-perfect' New York TimesIn the pursuit of fame, how do you know when you've gone too far?When Cass - a thirty-something, promising, queer playwright - receives a prestigious award, it seems as though her career is finally taking off. That is until she finds herself at the centre of a searing public shaming, which relegates her from rising star in New York to a nobody on her best friend's sofa in L.A. As she comes to terms with the extent of her failure, she is forced to question who she is without the thing that has always defined her: her art. So she fills the days by stalking her playwright nemesis, of whom she is excruciatingly envious, and getting pulled into the orbit of the charismatic but manipulative filmmaker next door. As Cass becomes increasingly involved with her neighbour and the group of pugilistic teenage girls she's documenting, Cass begins to dream of a comeback. But when the film spins dangerously out of control, Cass is once again forced to reckon with her ambition, and her rage.We Play Ourselves is a darkly funny novel about the cost of making art, and the art of making enemies. 'Funny, sharp, modern - this is an excellent debut novel. Its bold, edgy, strange heroine has adventures and misadventures, screws up again and again, but somehow won my love. I couldn't put this book down.' Weike Wang, PEN/Hemingway-award winning author of Chemistry

A charming devil arrives in the quiet village of Edmonton to bargain for the souls of its residents in exchange for their darkest wishes. Elizabeth should be his easiest target, having been labeled a "witch" and cast out by the town, but her soul is not so readily bought. As the devil returns to convince her - and then returns again - unexpected passions flare, alliances are formed, and the village is forever changed. An inventive retelling of a Jacobean drama, this sharp, subversive fable debates how much our souls are worth when hope is hard to come by.

"Jen Silverman's poems are baptisms of desire. They've traveled the world and come back to tell you the pleasure to be found there, the holes of each leaving, the way it is all 'drenched in light and wine.' Economical in syntax and generous in image, Bath astonishes at every turn with its heart, its wisdom, its waters."- Traci Brimhall, author of our lady of the ruins"I have a crush on Jen Silverman's language. This multi-hyphenate wordsmith writes poetry that sings with silver fish scales, bathes in love, hopes for redemption. I'll read with ardor anything Silverman writes, in any genre." - Sarah Ruhl, playwright of Eurydice

Reading like a cross between Shelia Heti's How Should A Person Be? and Lily King's Writers & Lovers, We Play Ourselves is a wildly entertaining debut novel of female rage, self-sabotage, the pursuit of fame and the costs of artistic ambition.

Wink follows unhappy housewife Sofie and her breadwinning husband, Gregor, who both seek weekly counseling from an unorthodox therapist, Doctor Frans. Their current topic of disagreement: the cat, Wink. When Wink goes missing, violent desires, domestic anarchy, and feline vengeance emerge, threatening the neatly ordered reality Sophie, Gregor, and Doctor Frans have constructed.

Betty is rich; Betty is lonely; Betty's busy working on her truck; Betty wants to talk about love, but Betty needs to hit something. And Betty keeps using a small hand mirror to stare into parts of herself she's never examined. Five different women named Betty collide at the intersection of anger, sex, and the "thea-tah."

Sharon, in her mid-fifties, is recently divorced and needs a roommate to share her Iowa home. Robyn, also in her mid-fifties, needs a place to hide and a chance to start over. But as Sharon begins to uncover Robyn's secrets, they encourage her own deep-seated desire to transform her life completely. A dark comedy about what it takes to re-route your life - and what happens when the wheels come off.

Two sisters and a dog live out their lives on the bleak English moors, dreaming of love and power. The arrival of a hapless governess and a moor-hen set all three on a strange and dangerous path. The Moors is a dark comedy about love, desperation, and visibility.