Nothing Happened and Then It Did, by Jake Silverstein
by Jonathan Liebson
In what he dubs a “Chronicle in Fact and Fiction,” Silverstein’s book takes aim at the figurative and often porous boundary between memoir and the novel. The author’s real life misadventures inspire their fictional counterpart, and the fiction in turn dovetails with the next stage of his itinerary. As he hops from Texas to Louisiana to Mexico, Silverstein is like a recurring protagonist in a collection of linked stories.
