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book cover for Selected Misdemeanors

Selected Misdemeanors

Essays at the Mercy of the Reader

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Pub Date Sep 01 2025 | Archive Date Aug 31 2025

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Description

The essays in Selected Misdemeanors are unapologetic word grenades lobbed into an otherwise complacent forgetfulness. Throughout the collection, Sue William Silverman focuses on pivotal, often fleeting moments that defined the course of her life, such as a fraught family vacation; an evening watching the Chippendale dancers’ extravaganza; a Pac-Man-and-whisky-fueled rumination on failed relationships; and the way melodramatic movies such as Rome Adventure shape an adolescent’s idea of love. Ranging from short to flash to micro length, these emotionally courageous writings imbue minimalist forms with maximalist emotions and an unrepentant, no-holds-barred attitude. Each action explored in this collection produces the Butterfly Effect—seemingly quotidian events rippling into emotional tsunamis.
 

The essays in Selected Misdemeanors are unapologetic word grenades lobbed into an otherwise complacent forgetfulness. Throughout the collection, Sue William Silverman focuses on pivotal, often...


Advance Praise

“Sue William Silverman refreshes the idea that insight is best found in the granules. From piece to piece this book constructs a constellation of wonder, each point of light written with resilience, wit, heartbreak, and a stunning forthrightness.”—Paul Lisicky, author of Song So Wild and Blue: A Life with the Music of Joni Mitchell

“A master essayist, Sue William Silverman harnesses all at her disposal—poetry, photographs, film, and, most of all, her luminous and lyrical prose—to resurrect memory and interrogate loneliness, longing, and loss. The result is a full-throated, gorgeous, multi-layered meditation on obsession and desire. The heat rises off the page.”—Sonja Livingston, author of Ghostbread

“The quality of Sue William Silverman’s seeing, the angle of her gaze, and the way she builds a frame for readers to view our own tragic, complicated, beautiful lives make this collection distinctive. Throughout, I am struck by the way Silverman folds time, navigating the rich span of her years on this planet to locate vital patterns and connections. These essays contain such wisdom about the making of a life. . . . Silverman is a national treasure.”—Jill Christman, author of If This Were Fiction

“Sue William Silverman refreshes the idea that insight is best found in the granules. From piece to piece this book constructs a constellation of wonder, each point of light written with resilience...


Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9781496244222
PRICE $21.95 (USD)
PAGES 204

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Featured Reviews

Sue William Silverman is one of our top essayists, and her newest collection, filled with her trademark insightful and perceptive prose, exploration of human flaws and frailties, strengths and foibles, gives us a perfect reason why. Thanks to NetGalley and the University of Nebraska Press for the opportunity to read this wonderful eArc.

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Sue William Silverman's newest group of essays will sear you to the core. Spread across a full life's timeline, the moments in these flash and micro nonfiction pieces come at the reader with unexpected impact. Silverman mixes happy memories with horrific ones and brings a good balance of tears and laughter. She is unabashed, brilliant with her metaphors, and unapologetic. Silverman is not looking for sympathy, instead she generates empathy which we all need more of. We can't know what another's life has brought them if we don't learn about it. She points to how succinct moments can have tremendous effects on all of us. Though some of the difficult memories come at the reader from an unexpected sideline, the complications are given in tiny doses. Highly recommend this collection for its impact, for craft, and for understanding life. Many thanks to the University of Nebraska Press and Netgalley for making this ARC available.

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