JOAN SILBER EXPLORES TIME IN FICTION IN THE NEWEST ADDITION TO
THE ART OF SERIES, EDITED BY CHARLES BAXTER
A series on writing that specializes in sharp-witted lucidity
“Fiction imagines for us a stopping point from which life can be seen as intelligible,” asserts Joan Silber in
The Art of Time in Fiction. The end point of a story determines its meaning, and one of the main tasks a writer faces is to define the duration of a plot. Silber uses wide—ranging examples from F. Scott Fitzgerald, Chinua Achebe, and Arundhati Roy, among others, to illustrate five key ways in which time unfolds in fiction. In clear-eyed prose, Silber elucidates a tricky but vital aspect of the art of fiction.
The Art of Time in Fiction: As Long As it Takes is part of The
Art of series, a line of books by important authors on the craft of writing, edited by Charles Baxter. Each book examines a singular, but often assumed or neglected, issue facing the contemporary writer of fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. The
Art of series is meant to restore the art of criticism while illuminating the art of writing.
PRAISE FOR JOAN SILBER:
“Silber’s writing has a clean, brisk authority that doesn’t linger to congratulate itself over either its insight or its wonderful details. “Time is moving,’ [her] stories seem to say, ‘so let’s get on with it while we still can.’”
—THE BELIEVER
