“REMOVE THE CAP” SHOULD BE DEMOCRAT’S ELECTION-YEAR BATTLE CRY

In the “State News” section of the latest AARP Bulletin, the American Association of Retired People (AARP) solicits volunteer advocates in New York, Vermont, and other states to speak with state legislatures about a variety of issues. But nowhere in the publication does AARP ask for volunteers in the national fight to preserve Social Security benefits. That’s because AARP doesn’t have any program to fight for Social Security, either by its staff or with volunteers.

I pored over the AARP website and found plenty of useful information about who’s eligible to receive Social Security, what the potential benefits are, how to apply for Social Security, how to compute whether you have to pay taxes on Social Security benefits and how much you’ll have to pay, and other important consumer information that people need to know about the program. (arp.org)

But nothing about preserving Social Security.

And yet twice in the same AARP Bulletin asking for volunteer advocates are two—count them, two!—explicit references to Social Security’s trust fund running out of money in 2033. Both times, AARP focuses on the possible reduction of benefits to 78% of what they currently are if nothing is done. AARP treats the future gutting of Social Security benefits almost as if it’s a fait accompli.

Of course, AARP isn’t the only organization to be ignoring a dire problem that will affect virtually every non-wealthy American in 12 years: how to live with reduced benefits after planning that Social Security would be a major retirement income source? The Democratic Platform expatiates at length in pious generalities about making Social Security more progressive and rejecting “every effort to cut, privatize, or weaken Social Security, including attempts to raise the retirement age, diminish benefits by cutting cost-of-living adjustments, or reduce earned benefits.” But not one single concrete proposal about keeping Social Security financially solvent.

The Democrats do have a Social Security bill before Congress that, among other things, will postpone the 2033 date for the depletion of the Social Security reserves until 2038. But again, no concrete permanent solution to the Trust Fund running out of money.

The Republicans, of course, want to privatize Social Security, so that what people get in benefits depends on how well they maneuver the ever-evolving, ever tempestuous financial markets. Most Republicans express delight at the thought of the Social Security Trust fund going bankrupt.

In the past, experts and politicians have proposed several ways to deal with the impending shortfall, including raising the retirement age, increasing the Social Security tax (known duplicitously as the “payroll” tax), lowering benefits, and borrowing from general funds. The last idea makes some sense since the federal government has been borrowing from the Social Security Trust Fund for years—another 1980’s Reagan move to avoid raising taxes on the wealthy while spending on defense as if we were actively fighting wars on six fronts; the trouble was, it increased the overall federal deficit, so it didn’t really address the underlying fiscal crisis of too few tax revenues.

Little is said about a simple, elegant, and fair solution to the Social Security funding crisis, one that will also go a long way towards addressing the problem of growing income and wealth inequality: remove the cap on income assessed the Social Security tax.

Right now, income—from minimum wage up—is taxed 6.2% that goes into the Social Security Trust Fund. But no 2021 income over $142,800 gets taxed ($147,000 in 2022), making the Social Security tax as regressive as possible, which means it removes fiscal responsibility from those making more than $142,800 and puts it on the back of those making less money. And it’s more regressive than ever, because so much income wealth has collected in the hands of relatively few people, another negative impact of growing wealth and income inequality. The cap has gradually been increasing, by 70.5% in total over the past 20 years, or 8.5% a year.

The Congressional Research Service estimates that if we removed the cap on income assessed the Social Security tax while keeping benefit maximums the same, it would push back the depletion of the Social Security Trust Fund by 30 years. And a lot can happen in 30 years. For one thing, we’ll be through the retirement years of the Baby Boom generation, whose enormous size compared to previous and future generations (save maybe millennials) has created the Social Security shortfall by virtue of so many people retiring compared to the overall population. Another possibility is that we begin accepting immigrants again, replenishing our shrinking population of younger, healthier workers to support retired workers.

Progressives, liberals, and Democrats have all supported a number of causes over the past few years that have been encapsulated into one catch phrase: #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, Pride, and Defund the Police all represent traditional and patriotic ideas of fairness and equality, and all propose clusters of viable solutions to pressing social problems. But all have the drawback of being expressed in a way that the right can undermine. The right has distorted the meaning of these slogans—and by implication, all they represent—to feed their base of the uneducated and rural whites with the fresh meat of lies and misrepresentations. The right wing has easily twisted #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, Pride, and Defend the Police into the other side of an “us versus them” fight for survival and the soul of America. Progressives and Democrats love these movements and what they represent, but their articulation in sloganeering has made them prone to the right-wing smear. Thus, they have ended up dividing the country, making it harder to address the challenges posed by these movements.

But how could the right wing contort “Remove the Cap and Save Social Security” into something that threatens the culture and financial security of poor and middle class whites, educated or not?

The Democrats have looked desperately for an issue they can use to wedge into the mass of Republican voters and pry off enough votes to build additional strength in the Senate and House and control more state governments. Every issue with which they come up the Republicans use to stoke resentment against some group—minorities, women, immigrants, LGBTQ+ movements, scientists.  In the picture they paint for their base, every Democratic initiative threatens to take away the base’s wealth and give it to the undeserving poor or threatens to overwhelm their traditional way of life with immoral city ways.

But what could anyone possibly say against saving Social Security by taxing rich people?

Perhaps the reason the Democrats shy away from discussions of removing the cap is that all of their large contributors and so many other contributors make more than $142, 800 a year. One interesting variation on removing the cap is to do it gradually by creating a donut hole: all income under $142,800 and above $400,000 would be assessed the Social Security tax, exempting the heart of the upper middle class. Over time, as the cap increased, less income would fall into the exempt donut area, until finally the donut would cease to exist; that process would take about 13 years if the cap continues to advance by 8.5% a year. The short-term loss of Social Security revenue would be substantial, but it would make the idea of removing the cap more politically palatable.

For decades, Social Security has been the third rail in American politics—a beloved institution that politicians try to dismantle, privatize, or in other ways harm at their own risk. Putting Social Security front and center is a winning issue for Democrats—either Republicans have to agree to strengthen it or they risk losing lots of votes, even among the fiercest Trumpites.

“Remove the Cap” or “Remove the Cap to Save Social Security” should be one of the rallying cries of Democrats and anyone else wanting to move the country leftward. It’s a winning issue. As a wedge issue, it’s the left’s equivalent of abortion.

I fear that the Democratic party is going to need a little prodding to feature “Remove the Cap” as one the central rally cries of the 2022 and 2024 elections. I implore all readers to contact their Congressional representatives and Senators once a month asking them to develop and support legislation that removes the cap on income assessed the Social Security tax. Also tell your friends. Share this article on Facebook and Twitter. We have to keep the focus on this issue, not just as a means of showing poor and middle class Republican voters that Trumpism is not in their economic best interest. Because if something isn’t done soon, many of us will find themselves in poverty conditions starting in 2033.

ANOTHER GREAT REVIEW OF THE BROTHERS SILVER.

Here’s an excerpt from the Fall 2021 issue of Main Street Rag: “Jampole’s experimentation is an intriguing, if sometimes challenging, way to stretch the novel form. Readers who are willing to put in a little work to digest the meandering poetic style will enjoy its freshness. There’s plenty to chew on for anyone curious about the impact of dysfunctional families on children who make it to adulthood.” To order the issue, go to the Main Street Rag website: https://mainstreetragbookstore.com/product/the-main-street-rag-fall-2021/

Buy The Brothers Silver on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Brothers-Silver-Marc-Jampole/dp/1952085071/

At Owl Canyon Press: https://www.owlcanyonpress.com/product-page/the-brothers-silver-a-novel

At Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-brothers-silver-marc-jampole/1138658640?ean=9781952085079

NEW REVIEW OF THE BROTHERS SILVER FOCUSES ON SOCIAL CRITICISM IN THE NOVEL

Here are excerpts from the latest positive review of The Brothers Silver:

“Jampole sees present-day America as a brutal right-wing Inferno, where the sufferers become the opposite of their gentle youthful incarnations… The recent riot/failed coup/insurrection/tantrum/ragefest at the Capitol in Washington, DC, makes Jampole’s warnings look prescient. “

– Your Impossible Voice, September 21, 2021

For more: https://www.yourimpossiblevoice.com/review-the-brothers-silver/

Buy The Brothers Silver on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Brothers-Silver-Marc-Jampole/dp/1952085071/

At Owl Canyon Press: https://www.owlcanyonpress.com/product-page/the-brothers-silver-a-novel

At Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-brothers-silver-marc-jampole/1138658640?ean=9781952085079

THE LATEST SNAKE NATION REVIEW HAS THREE OF MY POEMS

Included is one of my personal favorites among all the poems I have written over the decades, “The Beach in Winter.” If you like it, buy the issue and see my other two poems: https://snakenationbooks.store/product/snake-nation-review-issue-28

THE BEACH IN WINTER

That winter day we didn’t drive

along the shore, didn’t watch the waves

explode berserkly over snow banks,

didn’t stop to take a photo

on a boardwalk bench,

plug quarters into telescope

to track a distant steamer chug towards ocean

underneath a clutch of rising seabirds,

didn’t hurtle snowballs bare-hand at the water,

didn’t wrap our shivers in a shroud of steam,

but stood at window sill and counted taxis

as they lurched through slush

and talked of how we loved

to walk along the beach in winter.

  • Marc Jampole

Published in Snake Nation Review #28 (2021)

THE BROTHERS SILVER IS NOW AVAILABLE AS AN AUDIO BOOK

My new novel, The Brothers Silver, is now available on audiobook: https://www.amazon.com/The-Brothers-Silver-A-Novel/dp/B09CFMMGDW/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

The reader, Donald Davenport, has a great interview about the joys and challenges of narrating The Brothers Silver  in  a Dungball Express podcast: https://thedungballexpress.libsyn.com/the-brothers-silvers-silver-tongue

 

 

Prairies Book Review article on The Brothers Silver Calls It “Powerfully Told…. A Soaring and Haunting Tale…”

In the May 29th edition of the Prairies Book Review:

The Brothers Silver by Marc Jampole

Powerfully told… A soaring and haunting tale.

Transcendent and hard-hitting, Jampole’s ambitious literary tale takes readers into meandering lives of two brothers as they try to survive their traumatic childhood. With a mother who is prone to frequent mental break-downs, attempting suicide more than often and a father who is never there, the brothers Jules and Leon Silver’s lives are more than troubled. They barely survive their traumatic childhood, venturing on different life paths later. Will they heal or lose themselves in insecurities and chaos of their earlier lives? Jampole writes with an assured hand as he describes the intricacies of the boys’ bond with each other and their parents. The shifts and complexities that happen in the Silvers’ lives are ripe with ups and downs and make more than a mere backdrop of other people’s tortured stories. With poetic precision, Jampole captures the brothers’ emotions of helplessness, insecurity, and confusion and a sense of a new possibility (experienced by Jules while on his long road trip). He beautifully conveys their constant struggles, inner turmoil, the shared trauma, and the underlying restlessness, and in due process, he not only delves into their sibling bond but also the questions of bad parenting, long-lasting effect of childhood trauma, family ties, relationship woes, mental, physical, and emotional abuse, and how healing is a difficult journey and how some people never heal whereas for others it takes a lifetime of struggle and introspection. The brothers’ past is revealed in a series of flashbacks throughout the narrative. Jules’s and Leon’s resilience make them shine, making the reader root for throughout their struggles of finding a meaning in life. Jules dominates the narrative but loses his shine in front of Leon as the story moves forward.  Realistic and utterly complex, the secondary characters inhabit a vivid, convincing private world of their own, truly coming alive in readers’ minds. As the story progresses, the reader realizes that the novel is much more than two boys’ struggles to get through their growing years: it’s a well-crafted mixture of exploration of childhood trauma, abusive relationships, and substance abuse with in-depth analysis of how with passing years, the nation’s moral fabric is gradually disintegrating, with new-age cultural shifts in the society on the rise. Lyrical, assured storytelling, fully fleshed-out characterization, and moving insights contribute to a story that’s guaranteed to make a lasting note in readers’ minds. Fans of literary fiction won’t want to miss this one.

Buy The Brothers Silver on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Brothers-Silver-Marc-Jampole/dp/1952085071/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

At Owl Canyon Press: https://www.owlcanyonpress.com/product-page/the-brothers-silver-a-novel

At Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-brothers-silver-marc-jampole/1138658640?ean=9781952085079

Violet Snow’s Review of The Brothers Silver Published in The Adirondack Review

Here is Violet Snow’s review of my new novel, The Brothers Silver, that was published a few weeks back in The Adirondack Review:

What are the forces that make us who we are? How do siblings grow up in the same environment but come out with different characteristics, different attitudes toward the world, and different fates? In his novel The Brothers Silver, Marc Jampole traces the paths two brothers take to adulthood, surviving, by the skin of their teeth, a suicidal mother and a sadistic father.
The brilliant younger brother, Leon, is the favorite of his parents. They still take out their frustrations on him, but the older brother, Jules, who is nearly as smart, is jealous of their undisguised preference for Leon. They both emerge from childhood with qualities of cynicism and self-indulgence. Although the guilt-wracked Jules is the point-of-view character, somehow he comes off as less sympathetic than his brother, who is determined to live in the moment, with a minimal sense of responsibility. He doesn’t seem a whole lot happier than the aimless Jules, who does whatever seems easiest in any situation, while berating himself for not doing more.
Interestingly, although they are both troubled and selfish, they do not become abusers like their parents. Jules is drawn irresistibly to unlikeable people, as if unconsciously trying to work out his relationship with his parents through interactions with psychotic friends and vicious lovers. He has a tortured intimacy with El, a woman who is as manipulative as his parents were; however, although he’s subject to fits of anger, he doesn’t treat her nearly as badly as his father treated his mother. He eventually gets wise and leaves her, winding up in a placid marriage, working a white-collar job, and fathering a daughter we don’t get to know, although she seems pretty okay. Check off a plus for Jules, for not victimizing his own kid, even though he himself was a victim.
Jampole experiments with the novel form, blowing it open through an array of styles and viewpoints that meet with varying success. Each of the main characters gets a chapter or two in the first person, but Jules owns the bulk of the narration, beginning with a childhood overview written in a poetic style scattered with rhymes.
I found myself preoccupied with the rhymes through much of the first chapter. I would hold my breath, waiting for the pairs to emerge:
She curses bitterly, a shrieking fanfare about Dad deserting us. The TV clicks on, and now its steady blare.
The rhyme of “fanfare” and “blare” is so gentle, I almost missed it, while I got a jolt of pleasure from recognizing the pattern.
The question is, do I want to be so distracted by the rhymes that it’s hard to concentrate on the story? It’s true that there’s a touch of exhilaration to Jampole’s rhymes, especially when they’re most unexpected. They pull the reader along on rippling sounds that combine in scintillating ways. But it’s jarring when one comes along that goes splat:
            “Are you out of your mind, of course it’s my business.”
            “I won’t take pressure, no duress.”
But I’ll accept that Jampole is playing with words while telling a story. He seems to be more interested in sound than in strictly reproducing voice, as long as the truth is embodied.
By the time I hit page 24, I’d stopped grasping for the rhymes and learned to ride them. Rhyming became a tide, washing in and out, carrying me along as Jules washed on the tide of his mother’s insanity, his father’s spasmodic neglect.
I applaud Jampole for his experimentation, even if I couldn’t always appreciate it.
In his sixties, Jules takes a road trip and looks up people he met on a youthful hitchhiking odyssey. In each encounter, he finds the wild idealism, rebellion, and/or hedonism of the ’70s has deteriorated into a conservative, exploitative lifestyle that Jules considers reprehensible. The tattoo artist now traffics in illegal immigrants. The frat-boy drug dealer is buying a seat in Congress.
The long chapter containing this journey appears to serve three purposes in the novel. Jules’s visits with past comrades bemoan the loss of idealism in the world that the U.S. has become, making a political and moral statement that seems to belong in a separate book. Between these many little morality tales, he meditates on his relationship with Leon and recalls his disastrous relationship with El. Presumably, the often hallucinatory memories, evoked by long nights on the road, have a therapeutic effect on Jules. They also fill in gaps in the story for the reader’s benefit.
I suppose the whole chapter is witness to the person he has become as a result of his upbringing, but the thread to the morality tales is tenuous. However, the start of the book and the second half are linked by Jampole’s return to the poetic style in the long final chapter.
The increasingly non-linear chronology requires a go-with-the-flow attitude on the part of the reader, to match the rambling poetic phrasing:
I imagine an ancient tree, as gnarled and knotted as my brain-constipating thoughts beside a rotting bridge of selves transforming into future selves, all wallowing in praise and blame, pleasure, pain, loss and gain, ups and downs, while El seems to slide from lotus leaf to lotus leaf down the shallow river to a waiting tiger, which she rides to a distant town.
To pass the time while driving alone, Jules makes lists: the differences between himself and Leon, the many women he’s had sex with, the ones he didn’t have sex with, ways one can change, ways to prepare for death, ways El drove him crazy — this last list confirming he really was dealing with his mother:
She falsified my meanings, turning yes into no, fast into slow. Her dramatic preening — her brawling, burning, Gothic mistrals — sounded like my mother’s shtick, if my mother had studied forties flicks.
Finally, Jules heads home to New York, his lists replaced by disturbing familial memories, in kaleidoscopic sequence. By the time he arrives, he has abandoned the past and come to rest in the present:
A muggy ocean breeze teases with its wheezes. It glides between the buildings, reminding me the seas are near. It fills the streets with sticky nuzzles and the puzzle of the clouds…
And we can all take a deep, cleansing breath. The Brothers Silver requires patience and persistence, but an adventurous reader will find much to entertain and provoke.
VIOLET SNOWis a freelance journalist whose articles have appeared in the New York Times “Disunion” blog, Civil War Times, American Ancestors, The Sun Magazine, Jewish Currents, and numerous other periodicals. Woodstock Times has published her reviews of books and films.

Buy The Brothers Silver on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Brothers-Silver-Marc-Jampole/dp/1952085071/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

At Owl Canyon Press: https://www.owlcanyonpress.com/product-page/the-brothers-silver-a-novel

At Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-brothers-silver-marc-jampole/1138658640?ean=9781952085079

Review in Jewish Chronicle: Former Pittsburgher’s Novel of Jewish Brothers Affected by Harrowing Childhood

Dionna Dash’s review of The Brothers Silver in the July 9, 2021 edition of The Jewish Chronicle:

The Brothers Silver,” a tale of two brothers growing up in the wake of intergenerational family trauma, is the haunting and realistic debut novel from public relations executive and poet Marc Jampole — a former Pittsburgher and past president of New Light Congregation. After 32 years in Squirrel Hill, Jampole moved back to his hometown in New York four years ago and now serves on the board of Jewish Currents, a national arts and politics publication.

The novel traces the brothers’ lives from the 1960s until present day as they attempt to escape a fate sealed generations before their births, painting a portrait of parental abuse and reverberating trauma.

Jampole’s background writing poetry and short stories is evident in this novel, as each of its 12 chapters is written in a different voice and from a different perspective. One chapter is formatted as a letter, one is almost entirely dialogue between the boys’ aunt and uncle, and another shows Jules’ emotions conversing among themselves. It often uses a poetic prose, including inventive rhyming phrases at the end of paragraphs that lend a rhythm to the story. The writing style demands a close, focused read from its audience, allowing for deep connection with the novel’s many themes, but rendering it inaccessible to the casual reader.

The Brothers Silver” relies on Jewish references, as well as those from other religions, to help its plot unfold. The inclusion of Jewish scripture against the backdrop of a trauma-ridden existence offers a compelling case study of religious disillusionment throughout the book. Integration of Jewish themes and practices in the chapters heighten the imagery of this novel and lend it a personal authenticity and a sort of sacredness, yet those themes remain subtle enough to not overpower the rest of the narrative: Jules struggles with feelings of being an outsider, which echoes much of the historical Jewish experience.

Jules and Leon each deal with their trauma differently, leading Leon to become a self-identified “deadbeat” who rejects modern society, while Jules enters a relationship with a woman named El that is all too reminiscent of his parents’ catastrophic marriage.

Jules maintains a constant fear of death following an unfulfilling life, and is forced to confront that fear at every turn, especially after the rest of his family has passed away. Despite this dread, or perhaps because of it, he seems to regenerate a new life every few decades, shedding people and personalities and cutting himself off from more and more family members. This ultimately culminates in a 150-page road trip to retrace the players from the time of his life when he was in his destructive relationship with El. Unfortunately, this chapter becomes repetitive at times, with many of the characters being near recreations of each other with similar life trajectories.

There is an ambiguity at the end of this novel reminiscent of short stories in which the reader is left with enough closure to feel satisfied, yet still wonders what might happen next. This book does not have one ultimate, final message, but rather traces the lives and deaths of the members of the Silver family through all their gritty, candid struggles, allowing readers to decide which perspectives to trust and what conclusions to draw.

This novel is ideal for those who appreciate poetic writing with a Jewish undercurrent and want a realistic look at what it means to survive with unresolved trauma. “The Brothers Silver” is not a light read, but rather one that requires its audience to introspect on their own lives, their own beliefs and their own personal ordeals. PJC

Buy The Brothers Silver on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Brothers-Silver-Marc-Jampole/dp/1952085071/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

At Owl Canyon Press: https://www.owlcanyonpress.com/product-page/the-brothers-silver-a-novel

At Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-brothers-silver-marc-jampole/1138658640?ean=9781952085079

Multiple Unreliable Narrators: What I Learned from Stevenson and Faulkner

My article from the June 28, 2021 Charlotte Readers Blog:

I’ve always been attracted to novels that unfold from several points of view. As a child, the main reason I loved Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island so much was because Stevenson takes a break from narration by the boy Jim Hawkins so that Long John Silver can narrate a chapter of material that Jim could not have known about. And therein lies the essential reason to tell a story from many points of view. Each narrator only knows what she or he knows, creating all kinds of ironies for the reader, especially when more than one character describes the same events.

The 12 chapters of my new novel, The Brothers Silver (Owl Canyon Press, June 2021), unfold in ten voices, each of which has its own vocabulary and literary style, from simple first person and third person omniscient to script dialogue, surrealism, flash fiction, and stream of consciousness. For example, the narrator of the first chapter is the older Silver brother, a pre-teen suffering from post-traumatic stress disease. The sociopathic father, an inveterate gambler, narrates chapter two. The third chapter develops as dialogue between an aunt and uncle speaking New South dialect with a tinge of Yiddishkeit. In chapter four, the ego of one of the characters breaks into several component emotions, such as pride, shame, and anger, each becoming a distinct character.

Using different points of view in different chapters enabled me to create a number of unreliable narrators in The Brothers Silver. An unreliable narrator is a narrator whom the readers cannot completely trust. Sometimes the narrator doesn’t know everything the readers do. Sometimes the narrator is a liar, or has personality flaws that distort the perception of reality. A child narrator is inherently unreliable, because the child sees and understands on a simpler, less nuanced level than adults do. The mendacious scallywag Long John Silver, for example, is not a totally believable narrator. The classic unreliable narrator is the mentally-retarded Benji in Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury. In one way or another, each of the narrators in The Brothers Silver is unreliable. The honest ones tell their side of events from their point of view, while the dishonest ones lie or prevaricate, leaving it to the readers to figure out where the truth really lies.

Besides Treasure Island and The Sound and The Fury, several other novels influenced my approach to narration in The Brothers Silver. James Joyce’s Ulysses jumps immediately to mind. Of equal importance for me, though, is the little read Leutnant Gustl, a 1900 novella by the Austrian-Jewish writer Arthur Schnitzler. Told entirely from the point of view of a drunk soldier, Leutnant Gustl may be the first example in western literature of real stream of consciousness. Another twentieth century German novel, The Tin Drum, by Günther Grass, provides an excellent example of an obviously unreliable narrator: Oskar Matzerath, a patient in a mental hospital of diminutive stature armed with a toy drum and a glass-shattering shriek. In each chapter of his magisterial USA Trilogy, the American John Dos Passos writes primarily in third person limited, which means the speaker narrates in the third person but is able to see into the mind of one character.

The Brothers Silver traces the lives of two boys who grow up in a family haunted by mental illness, violence, drugs, and abuse. The story begins in the early 1960’s, after the parents divorce and the father becomes increasingly absent. The first chapter tracks the mother’s cycles of manic activity followed by ever deeper depressions during which the boys are left to fend for themselves, as she watches TV or sleeps day and night. The boys react in different ways to their increasingly desperate situation. The younger Leon retreats into his own depression, while the older Jules tenaciously fights a losing battle to maintain family normalcy. When older, both Leon and Jules fully participate in the social upheaval of the 1960’s and 1970’s. Drugs, cross-country hitchhiking, protests, alternative lifestyles, sexual experimentation—the Silver brothers take part in many aspects of the rebellious youth culture of those times.

Utilizing a series of unreliable narrators enabled me to get inside my characters in an immediate fashion—we don’t view their actions and words through the mediation of an omniscient and objective third person, but experience it first hand as the characters do. The contrast in how the narrators talk and think provides the storyline with a rich dialectical texture that I hope will engage readers and invigorate their imaginations.

Buy on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Brothers-Silver-Marc-Jampole/dp/1952085071/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Buy at Owl Canyon Press: https://www.owlcanyonpress.com/product-page/the-brothers-silver-a-novel

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LANDIS WADE INTERVIEWS ME ABOUT THE BROTHERS SILVER AT THE CHARLOTTE READERS PODCAST

Landis Wade interviews me about my new novel, The Brothers Silver, at the Charlotte Readers Podcast of June 25, 2021.

 

Buy on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Brothers-Silver-Marc-Jampole/dp/1952085071/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

 

Buy at Owl Canyon Press: https://www.owlcanyonpress.com/product-page/the-brothers-silver-a-novel

 

Buy on Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-brothers-silver-marc-jampole/1138658640?ean=9781952085079

 

For more on The Brothers Silver: https://thebrotherssilver.jampole.com/