Backward-Facing Man - Hardcover

Silver, Don

3.29

31 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060819286 ISBN 13: 9780060819286

Publisher: Ecco Press, 2005

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Charlie Puckman, Jr., Lorraine Nadia, andFrederick Keane came of age in the late 1960s.Like that era, their lives were mysterious,idealistic, passionate, and romantic, even -- butultimately confused and, often, ineffectual. Morethan thirty years later, their youthful adventurescontinue to have ramifications: Charlie facesprosecution after an industrial accident at hisfamily business, Lorraine's daughter is searchingfor the father she never knew, and Frederickhas gone underground after his radical life hasspiraled out of control.

Epic in scope and touching on such provocativeissues as Patty Hearst and the SLA, crimeand the possibility of redemption, and the searchfor self and life’s meaning, Backward-FacingMan is a novel about choices and their lastingeffects on people's lives, their families,and American society.

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About the Author:

For ten years, Don Silver was the president of a manufacturing company in Philadelphia. In 1999, he left corporate America to become a full-time writer. This is his first novel.

From Publishers Weekly:

A dark elegy for '60s campus radicalism and its turn toward violence in the years that followed, Silver's debut novel is a complex, beautifully turned-out thriller. Set in 1999–2000 and told by trust-funded failed writer Winnie Prescott, the narrative (which includes a role for Winnie's childhood friend Patty Hearst) centers on Lorraine Nadia, who has recently died, and her legal secretary daughter, Stardust. Shortly after her mother's death, Stardust encounters a disheveled man on a Philadelphia commuter train who notes cryptically that "Your mother and I, we go way back." He turns out to be local factory owner Chuck Puckman, whose younger, more radical self was a lover of Lorraine's—as was Frederick Keane, the infamous Volcano Bomber, who remains in hiding. The novel shuttles back and forth between Chuck, Lorraine and Frederick's eventually diverging paths; Chuck's present struggles to save his manufacturing business after an environmental disaster; and Stardust's efforts to piece together the story and search for Frederick. Silver handles all of the elements cleanly, writing convincingly in the voice of Winnie, who has never been good at much of anything. The plot has real bite—no matter what one's political persuasion. (Sept. 1)
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