THERE’S GOING TO BE TROUBLE from Random House
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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.
Are we repeating the mistakes of the past or starting a revolution?
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 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 draws close to repeating 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 avoiding 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.
Advance Praise for There’s Going to Be Trouble:
“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
"Atmospheric and profound, Silverman’s novel of defiance and acceptance shimmers with passion, repressed and unbridled."
—Booklist, Starred Review
“Jen Silverman’s smart, reflective new novel […] follows two generations of activists wrestling with the errors of the past as they strive to draft a more survivable future. Silverman clearly has an exceptional talent for dramatic tension: some of the book’s best scenes occur as characters battle out philosophical and political disagreements, whether they’re arguing in the relative safety of a dinner party or volleying back and forth from a tall window to a street teeming with riot police below.”
—Angela Lashbrook, The New York Times
“…Brilliant, beautifully written… It gathers unstoppable force as it moves toward a dramatic denouement that offers no easy conclusions. The questions Silverman poses about the ends and means of political violence are as relevant today as they were in the ’60s — or, for that matter, any era.”
Ann Levin, Associated Press
"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
"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
“THERE'S GOING TO BE TROUBLE is 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. An absolutely perfect read for this moment, and also one that will stay with you well beyond.”
—VV Ganeshananthan, author of Brotherless Night
Additional Links
Jen Silverman on The New Yorker Radio Hour with Vinson Cunningham