Q&A
A L W A Y S
Room
F O R
Improvement
Millburn native Joan Silber writes about people who break rules
WRITTEN BY CINDY SCHWEICH HANDLER
A
cclaimed author Joan
Silber, who grew up
in Millburn, recalls
studying hard,
writing poetry and
skating in Taylor
Park when she was young — activi-
ties that were unlikely to put her in
contact with the kinds of drug-deal-
ers, strippers and petty thieves that
populate her novels and short story
collections. But though she likes to
create characters who behave badly,
her message to them is the same as
it would be to anyone who has let
himself down: You can do better
than that.
“I watch a lot of TV where the
message is how people get corrupted
or people are worse than you think,
and I write about the other side of
that,” says Silber, who lives in New
York City. Her most recent work,
Improvement (Counterpoint, $17),
won both the 2017 National Book
Critics Circle Award for Fiction
and the 2018 Pen/Faulkner Award
for Fiction. We talked to her about
story-telling, how Hurricane Sandy
inspired her, and the joys of traveling
for work.
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BACK TO SCHOOL 2019 MILLBURN & SHORT HILLS MAGAZINE
HOW OLD WERE YOU WHEN YOU
LIVED IN MILLBURN, AND WHAT
MEMORIES DO YOU HAVE OF
GROWING UP THERE? My parents
moved there in 1941, and I was born
there. I went to the [public] schools,
and stayed there till I moved out
on my own after college. I had very
good teachers. I loved reading; I had
friends I would show my writing to,
and they’d show me theirs. It was an
environment that was quite friendly
to writers. When I went to Sarah
Lawrence as an undergrad [she is
currently a faculty member] , half
the population had gone to a private
school, and I thought they’d know
more than me. But they didn’t.
AT WHAT POINT DID YOU KNOW
THAT YOU WANTED TO BE A
WRITER? I wanted to be a movie
star or actress when I was in fifth
or sixth grade, and I took dramatic
lessons with a friend. But that went
by the wayside, because at one point I
learned I didn’t have any talent. I also
wanted to write poetry from the time
I was little, and in fact, we had to do a
research paper my junior year of high
school. The question I had to answer
was, Why did [French poet] Arthur
Rimbaud stop writing at age 19?
There’s no answer to that question.
YOU STUDIED WITH [FAMED SHORT
STORY WRITER] GRACE PALEY WHEN
YOU WERE AT SARAH LAWRENCE.
WHAT USEFUL LESSONS ABOUT
WRITING DID YOU LEARN FROM
HER? It was in the late ’60s,and
it was her first year teaching under-