Selected Misdemeanors

Sue William Silverman is an award-winning memoirist, essayist, and poet of eight previous books, including How to Survive Death and Other Inconveniences (Nebraska, 2020) and Acetylene Torch Songs: Writing True Stories to Ignite the Soul (Nebraska, 2024). She is co-chair of the MFA in Writing Program at Vermont College of Fine Arts.

“Sue William Silverman refreshes the idea that insight is best found in the granules. From piece to piece this book constructs a constellation of wonder, each point of light written with resilience, wit, heartbreak, and a stunning forthrightness.”-Paul Lisicky, author of Song So Wild and Blue: A Life with the Music of Joni Mitchell “A master essayist, Sue William Silverman harnesses all at her disposal-poetry, photographs, film, and, most of all, her luminous and lyrical prose-to resurrect memory and interrogate loneliness, longing, and loss. The result is a full-throated, gorgeous, multi-layered meditation on obsession and desire. The heat rises off the page.”-Sonja Livingston, author of Ghostbread “The quality of Sue William Silverman’s seeing, the angle of her gaze, and the way she builds a frame for readers to view our own tragic, complicated, beautiful lives make this collection distinctive. Throughout, I am struck by the way Silverman folds time, navigating the rich span of her years on this planet to locate vital patterns and connections. These essays contain such wisdom about the making of a life. . . . Silverman is a national treasure.”-Jill Christman, author of If This Were Fiction

• Author’s NotePart 1. Strange EntanglementsAt the Apollo TheatreComing AttractionsChild CareOn Understanding Time for the First TimeMiss Demeanor Considers the Time When She Was Forced to Hold the Crayon . . .Scratching the SurfaceTime Travel for BeginnersPostcard: The BerkshiresA Treatise on Dark Matter(s)Learning the Antimatter of What MattersRetainerPostcard: Monhegan Island, MaineHarbor LightsMiss Demeanor Considers the Time in Puerto Rico . . .7-Up as a Cure for IronyThe Silence DetectorMy Russian HeritageDrinks for All OccasionsSnow on CherriesLove DefermentMiss Demeanor Considers the First of Many Jobs . . .Miss Demeanor Considers the Time She Lived in a Room . . .Respect, AlmostMiss Demeanor Considers the Time She Posed as an Israeli . . .Manilow FidelityCarry OnPart 2. How To and How NotLibrary with Hyacinth, Girl, and GunsHow ToHow to Find a Snow Leopard in GeorgiaNegative CapabilitiesMiss Demeanor Considers the Time She Hid . . .Miss Demeanor Considers the Time She Was Married . . .Mug Shots with Fellow FugitivesThe Poetic SentenceMissing the CluesOn LiminalityExchange RatesRemembrance of Things PastThe Long Road Out of EdenPostcard: Greetings from Atlantic City!The UndertakingReflections on Blue VelvetThe Family ChiropteraThe Soft Beauty of an Ordinary LifeMiss Demeanor Considers the Time She Stood under the Boardwalk . . .TrashyMiss Demeanor Considers the Time between Hippiedom and Adulthood . . .Degas Paints the Chippendales and MePart 3. GriefletsTooGriefletsPsych Ward, DroughtExpiration DateAgainst RuinEmerald IsleAl Di LÀInto the Wild of the CalmThe Lost Art of the Near TiltThe Origin of Her SuperpowersMiss Demeanor Must Consider, Whether She Wants to or Not . . .Miss Demeanor Must Also Consider the Time Her Father . . .Tinea CapitisA Grand Unified Theory of DiseaseOrgan MusicDyscalculiaPostcard: The Big Apple!Postcard: New York CityXeroxing ChristieMiss Demeanor Considers the Time She Got Her First Author Photo . . .Miss Demeanor Considers Her Desk (Messy Like Her Life) . . .The Memory BoxSeeking Paradise on the Road to NowhereAcknowledgments