Secrets of Happiness

One of O: The Oprah Magazine's O Mag's Most Anticipated Books of 2021. One of Publishers Weekly's Top 10 picks for Spring 2021.

‘Joan Silber writes with a frankness and freshness that draws the reader closer with every page. It would be impossible to overstate just how good this book is.’ - Ann Patchett

Ethan, a young lawyer in New York, learns that his father has long kept a second family - a wife and two kids living in Queens. In the aftermath of this revelation, Ethan's mother spends a year travelling abroad, returning much changed, just as her now ex-husband falls ill. Across town, Ethan's half brothers are caught in their own complicated journeys: one brother's penchant for minor delinquency has escalated and the other must travel to Bangkok to bail him out, while the bargains their mother struck about love and money continue to shape all their lives.

As Ethan finds himself caught in a love triangle of his own, the interwoven fates of these two households elegantly unfurl to touch many other figures, revealing secret currents of empathy and loyalty, the bounty of improvised families and the paradoxical ties that weave through life's rich contours. With a generous and humane spirit, Secrets of Happiness elucidates the ways people marshal the resources at hand in an effort to find joy.

‘Joan Silber's translucent, morally attentive prose does something to the vision as well as the spirit: if you can look up from it, you'll find your own world altered - rinsed clean, and luminous.’ - Charlotte Wood