Sunday, December 6, 2015

#50: I Smile Back by Amy Koppelman

A young wife and mother struggles with her identity, masking her problems with drugs and risky sex, in Amy Koppelman's downbeat portrayal of suburban life I Smile Back.

Koppelman creates a fully-realized central character, and finely-tuned but bleak sketch of the American Dream, for an overall rewarding literary fiction outing.

I became interested in this novel when I learned that it would be made into a film with Sarah Silverman, who to me seems to be a good choice for the self-destructive Laney.  I Smile Back was published by Two Dollar Radio, a small publishing house in nearby Columbus, Ohio, whose output I have enjoyed.

I purchased this novel from Two Dollar Radio and read it quickly, passing it on to other like-minded readers afterwards.

This was a great novel to enjoy in reaching my goal of reading fifty books by women in 2015.  I wanted to seek out new voices and stories told from different perspectives, and Koppelman's work was a good example of that goal.

No comments:

Post a Comment