I thought Joan Silber’s Improvement was alright.
Nothing more, nothing less.
To be fair, I went in with pretty high expectations. Improvement won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2017 and the Pen/Faulkner Award in 2018. Frequent visitors of this Substack will know that I often shit on literary awards. But they still count for something. Right?
Don’t get me wrong, I thought Silber put on a literary masterclass in Improvement. It’s not at all surprising that the novel was met with widespread critical acclaim. The first three pages of the book are filled with effusive words of praise, for Christ’s sake. The novel’s structure is interesting and unique, and Silber’s execution is nearly perfect.
And yet, I thought the novel lacked impact.
What makes a novel impactful? What does it even mean for a novel to be impactful?
Folks, you’re asking the wrong guy. I crop documents in Adobe for a living. But whatever literary impact may or may not be, I didn’t think Improvement had very much of it. I finished the novel earlier this week, and I almost didn’t write this review because I was struggling to recall the novel’s main plot points and characters.
To be honest, I still can’t really recall them.
I’m guess I’m lucky these Substack posts aren’t graded.
Reyna, a single mother living in New York, is perhaps the most “important” character in Improvement from a narrative standpoint. Reyna’s boyfriend, Boyd, is imprisoned on Rikers Island, and her frequent visits strengthen their relationship. Kiki, Reyna’s eccentric aunt, warns Reyna that her relationship with Boyd could get her into trouble, but Reyna ignores her advice and reunites with Boyd when he is released. But before they can settle into a routine, Boyd and his friends hatch a plan to smuggle cigarettes across state lines. Because Boyd is still on probation, Reyna expresses her strong reservations, but the scheme soon gets underway and the crew reaps massive profits. After a while, Boyd begins to encourage Reyna to get involved in the operation. She eventually agrees, but then she makes a seemingly minor decision that, per the back cover, “sets into motion a tapestry of events that will affect the lives of both loved ones and strangers.”
Mind you, I just summarized the first two chapters, both narrated by Reyna. All the following chapters, with the exception of the last, are narrated by a different character, some of whom have no personal relation to Reyna, Boyd, or Kiki altogether. A truck driver torn between his wife and ex-wife. A young woman struggling to survive the pain of heartache. A trio of German criminals. And yet, in one way or another, the events of the novel are all connected to Reyna’s aforementioned, fateful decision in Boyd’s apartment.
In other words, Improvement is the butterfly effect in action.
I’ve never encountered an author who pulls this off as well as Silber does. She exhibits a technical and narrative mastery that is subtle, subdued, and precise. Her characters’ lives and stories are blended together smoothly and seamlessly, and Silber’s diverse characterizations, descriptions, and dialogue are slowly stitched together to form something resembling an organic whole by the end of the novel.
I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been to write a novel like this. My hat is off to Silber. It really is.
That being said, the novel’s structure was about the only thing that left an impression on me. As I said, I thought Improvement lacked impact. Yes, the chapters and characters were inarguably connected to one another. But often, the connections were so vague and tenuous that I forgot who was who, what was what. Silber just didn’t give us enough time to sink into a character’s narrative — to explore their thoughts, feelings, desires, fears, and dreams — to develop any sort of attachment or, dare I say, investment in them. Just when you thought you were getting to know a character, the chapter would end, and suddenly you’re following a brand new character whose situation is, at best, vaguely ancillary to that of the previous chapter. As a result, Silber’s characters lack the sense of depth, substance, and complexity of Jennifer Egan’s in A Visit from the Goon Squad, a novel with an arguably similar conceit. I found Egan’s characters engaging, memorable, and deeply human. Silber’s, less so. Not much of an argument, of course, but what else can I say?
I’ve been reading a lot of novels recently. In case you were wondering, no, it doesn’t help me write my short story. Not even a little bit. I swear to god, I created the document in Google Drive like a year ago. Why does this kind of writing come so easily to me, while fiction is like pulling teeth? It’s a cruel irony since fiction is what I want to write most. But maybe that’s what makes it so hard?