Reviews for Babe in Paradise
“Silver’s vision cumulatively amounts to a dark, desperate down-and-out world, a Los Angeles of her own making, where the elusive instances of human connection are all too rare, and therefore all the more luminous.”
- The Los Angeles Times
“…a writer with a keen eye for alienation, and an ability to pinpoint the surprising ways that even the most disaffected among us are brought together.”
- The New York Times Book Review
“Magnificent…(Silver’s) writing stings, but the pain is good.”
- Village Voice
“When it comes to the small moments – the frustrations and regrets of daily living – Silver’s work is powerful and heartfelt, and nowhere more than in the relationships she depicts between parents and children, which she traces with savage grace.”
- Atlantic Monthly
“Energetic, inventive, and intensely dramatic, these fine stories illuminate unexpectedly dark corners of the American dream.”
- Andrea Barrett, National Book Award Winner and author of Ship Fever
“A very impressive debut from a writer of striking talent.”
- Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls
“How well Marisa Silver writes about her n’er-do-well characters, and how cunningly she invents their lives in these glittering stories. Babe in Paradise is a passionate and memorable debut.”
- Margot Livesey, author of The Missing World
“I loved reading Babe in Paradise. Marisa Silver’s talents are wide-ranging, and her authority considerable. L.A. needed someone to reveal its complex, beautiful underpinnings. Here she is.”
- Antonya Nelson, author of Nobody's Girl
Babe In Paradise voted one of the “Five Best Novels About California” by the Wall Street Journal