Your Only Best Hope is told in E.G. Silverman's unsparing, raw voice. Drink beer and eat pizza with a venture capitalist and a rock star as they attempt to hang out at a local bar unnoticed. Become immersed in small-town Maine as a Bostonian hardware store franchisee falls for a younger woman who wants more from him than he's ready to give. Commiserate with the proprietor of a central New Jersey neighborhood pharmacy as his business dissolves and his marriage is threatened. Relive loves and travails alongside a man who sells the Pittsburgh house he grew up in after the death of his parents. Search for answers to life's most enduring mysteries-truth, love, death, and discovery.
About the Author :
E.G. Silverman's fiction has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Fugue Journal, Confrontation, Painted Bride Quarterly, Beloit Fiction Journal, and in many other literary journals. His short story collections and novels have placed as finalists and semi-finalists in the Black Lawrence Press Big Moose Prize, the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction, the Columbus State University Donald L. Jordan Prize for Literary Excellence, among many more. His "Sourland Trilogy" of novels are forthcoming soon from High Frequency Press. Learn more at EGSilverman.com.
Review :
"Silverman's collection is an arresting portrait of humanity-a potent cocktail of flaws, insecurities, shame, and hope . . . the collection's universal themes will surely resonate."
-BlueInk Review
"Readers are swept into a roller coaster of emotions in these stories, glimpsing individuals seeking meaning and purpose amid life's complexities."
- Booklife Reviews
"Each of these witty, moving, and morally complex stories is as rich and packed with surprises as a novel. A deeply satisfying book, and a remarkable debut."
-Brian Morton, author of Starting Out in the Evening and Tasha: A Son's Memoir
"E.G. Silverman summons my favorite short story writers-T.C. Boyle, Tobias Wolff, Raymond Carver-and it is a joy to read such an accomplished writer at the height of his powers."
-Dan Pope, author of Housebreaking
"'Only the decision counts, ' a character in one of E.G. Silverman's stories says, a suggestion reinforced in nearly every story in Your Only Best Hope. Quality short stories are built on the tension created by difficult choices, and, in story after story, Silverman thrusts his characters toward decision-making to provide that tension."
-Gary Fincke, author of The Out-of-Sorts: Selected Stories
"A quiet but weighty collection that will surely resonate with readers long after the last page is turned."
-Kirkus Reviews
