Theres Going to Be Trouble, Jen Silverman
Theres Going to Be Trouble, Jen Silverman
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There's Going to Be Trouble

Author: Jen Silverman

Narrator: Marin Ireland

Unabridged: 10 hr 58 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/09/2024


Synopsis

A woman is pulled into a love affair with a radical activist, unknowingly echoing her family’s dangerous past and risking the foundations of her future in this electrifying novel.

“An exhilarating novel of star-crossed romances and radical politics, with writing so evocative I swear I could smell the tear gas.”—Nathan Hill, New York Times bestselling author of The Nix and Wellness

Minnow has always tried to lead the life her single father modeled—private, quiet, hardworking, apolitical. So she is rocked when an instinctive decision to help a student makes her the notorious public face of a scandal in the small town where she teaches. As tensions rise, death threats follow, and an overwhelmed Minnow flees to a teaching position in Paris. There, she falls into an exhilarating and all-consuming relationship with Charles, a young Frenchman whose activism has placed him at odds with his powerful family. As Minnow is pulled in to the daring protest Charles and his friends are planning, she unknowingly almost repeats a secret tragedy from her family’s past. Her father wasn’t always the restrained, conservative man he appears today. There are things he has taken great pains to conceal from his family and from the world.

In 1968, Keen is avoiding the Vietnam draft by pursuing a PhD at Harvard. He lives his life in the basement chemistry lab, studiously ignoring the news. But when he unexpectedly falls in love with Olya, a fiery community organizer, he is consumed by her world and loses sight of his own. Learning that his deferment has ended and he’s been drafted, Keen agrees to participate in the latest action that Olya is leading—one with more dangerous and far-reaching consequences than he could have imagined.

Minnow’s and Keen’s intertwining stories take us through the turmoil of the late sixties student movements and into the chaos of the modern world. Exploding with suspense, heart, and intelligence, There’s Going to Be Trouble is a story about revolution, legacy, passionate love, and how we live with the consequences of our darkest secrets.

About The Author

Jen Silverman is the author of a novel We Play Ourselves, a Lambda Literary Award finalist, the story collection The Island Dwellers, longlisted for a PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for debut fiction, and the poetry chapbook Bath. Honors include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Blair on April 09, 2024

Barely a day goes by that I don’t think about Jen Silverman’s We Play Ourselves, so this was easily one of my most highly anticipated books of the year. Like Cass in Play, Minerva (known by the nickname Minnow) is a woman fleeing scandal. All but fired from her teaching job, she seizes the chance to......more

Goodreads review by Stitching on July 25, 2024

I picked up this book because I liked the trippy cover and assumed it would be a literary fiction with a weird side, that's really not what this book is (it's a fiction/historical fiction about family, being an "activist" and moments that make and undo us and there's no trippiness involved). I liked......more

Goodreads review by BookOfCinz on April 21, 2024

Ummm very underwhelming.......more

Goodreads review by gabrielle on January 05, 2024

thank you to netgalley and random house for the ARC! really liked this, and i’m inclined to check out the author’s other works now! really intelligent dialogue and scene-crafting + the romance element is balanced well with the primary themes and um, tell me why i started squealing like i was reading......more

Goodreads review by Taylor on March 13, 2024

Yeesh, this one took me a long time to get into, and an even longer time to finish; as such, all my thoughts and opinions on it feel sapped of their strength and fervour, and I leave it behind feeling unsure whether I liked it, disliked it, or something else entirely. So! The writing was quality, and......more


Quotes

“Spanning from the late ’60s to the present day, from the chemistry labs of Harvard to the streets of Paris, this novel asks prescient questions about personal sacrifice, political responsibility, generational secrets, and the space for love in times of revolution.”Oprah Daily

“Vibrant and juicy.”Kirkus Reviews

“Jen Silverman’s remarkable new book is a thrilling journey through two generations of protest—the riotous streets of modern-day Paris, and the campus sit-ins of the Vietnam era—brilliantly weaving together the stories of two people separated by decades but confronting the same question: What happens when affairs of the heart collide with affairs of the state? This is an exhilarating novel of star-crossed romances and radical politics, with writing so evocative I swear I could smell the tear gas.”—Nathan Hill, author of The Nix and Wellness

“An unbelievably satisfying read—a beautifully paced page-turner with memorably flawed and sympathetic characters, heart-stopping ethical dilemmas, a deeply imagined and absorbing world, and descriptions of activism so painfully accurate you’ll gasp . . . It’s masterful, taut, funny, and sad—full of canny insights on how the political plays out in our personal lives. There's Going to Be Trouble is an absolutely perfect book for this moment, and also one that will stay with you well beyond it.”—V. V. Ganeshananthan, author of Brotherless Night and Love Marriage

“What a juicy and spirited novel Jen Silverman has given us! There’s Going to Be Trouble is crackling with excitement and written with great verve and flair. . . . Truly a dazzling reading experience.”—Jami Attenberg, author of The Middlesteins and All This Could Be Yours

“Atmospheric and profound, Silverman’s novel of defiance and acceptance shimmers with passion, repressed and unbridled.”—Booklist (starred review)