3.5
The Size of the World
ByPublisher Description
A richly imagined novel—set in wartime Vietnam, Thailand, Mexico, Sicily, and contemporary America—about men and women whose jolting encounters with the unfamiliar force them to realize how many "riffs there are to being human." Travelers, colonials, immigrants, and returned ex-pats meet or pass one another in narratives spanning lifetimes.In the book's opening, an engineer in Vietnam is shaken to discover why his company's planes are getting lost. A modern marriage between a Thai Muslim and an American woman leads to a terrible family fight. In 1920s Siam a young woman experiences the colonial stance of her tin-prospecting brother. The last section returns the brother to the States, older now but ever in love with Asian women.Love, loss, yearning, self-delusion, and forgiveness are here in ways fresh and surprising. And in the tradition of E. M. Forster, seeing the size of the world changes the meaning of home-sickness for all the characters.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesThe Size of the World Reviews
3.5
“I really like this author's storytelling style. Earlier this summer I read her book Fools, and now I can't remember if I had even made that connection when I picked this book up at the library??
In this book Joan Silber weaves together the stories of several characters connected over decades. It's fascinating to watch the connections unfold in subtle and unexpected ways. I really enjoyed this book. As is my preference it is largely character driven rather than plot driven. The stories of each character are interesting and subtle.”
About Joan Silber
is the author of eight works of fiction. Among many awards and honors, she has won the PEN/Faulkner Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction and has been a finalist for the National Book Award and the
Book Prize. She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in New York City.
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