I have to get the terrible title out of the way first, because…anything that turns you away from this book is to be vanquished. The book is amazing: wonderful and moving and humane. And the title: boo. OK, done.

Now: if you haven’t read Joan Silber before, that is sad, because she is fantastic. You open one of her books and a voice greets you, speaks to you, and you are there in another world with another human, as though you have passed through a veil and all is transformed.

I had just read…something else, I can’t even remember what, something that was a little sticky and cloying and complicated. Not bad, just…not welcoming.

But opening the first page was like drinking cool water from a well. I was in the other world. I was hearing about someone’s heart. And mind. And soul.

Oh my god this book is good.

Go. Enjoy.