YOUR ONLY BEST HOPE

Silverman’s contemplative characters reflect on what their lives might have been in this slim collection of stories.

In “Sourland Pharmacy,” a story that embodies the maverick spirit of this eclectic collection, Ted Moran and his employee Lucy Lee engage in an after-work flirtation that centers on his decision to write off a customer’s debt despite her inability to pay it back. The story balances each character’s inner thoughts with wider themes of affording medical care, adultery, and the impact of parents on their children. Ted asks himself a question that will apply to almost every story in this collection: “At what point did the constant chipping away of pleasure offset the stability of responsibility?” In “Court,” a man who’s just divorced his wife is implicated in a bomb explosion in New Jersey. Debating whether or not he’s made the right decision, he oscillates between imagining how their relationship could have panned out with the bleaker reality. Like many of the characters in this book, he seems destined to “endlessly repeat the relentless cycle of hope, love, and elation being torn down.” The closing story, “Beacon Home,” is one of the strongest. A man returns to clear out his childhood home and crosses paths with the teacher who seduced him; she forces him to look at memorabilia from his youth and retread the loss of his first love: “Can’t she let anything alone? Can’t she let me get through this unscathed and let me escape?” Across these seven short stories, Silverman showcases a cast of believable characters grappling with truth, lost connections, and loneliness among everyday scenarios. While some stories deal with the fallout of betrayal (e.g., “Sourland Pharmacy” and “Your Only Best Hope”), each narrative retains a glimmer of hope that these characters can change, even if it feels beyond their reach. We are each haunted by our past, Silverman insists, and even if confronting it is painful, it must be done.

A quiet but weighty collection that will surely resonate with readers long after the last page is turned.