Excerpt from Improvement by Joan Silber, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

She stayed for eight years. Her letters said, "My husband thinks I sew as well as his sisters," and "I'm rereading my copy of Ovid in Latin. It's not bad!" and "Winter is sooo long this year, I hate it. Osman has already taught me all he knows about the stars." No one could make sense of who she was now or put the parts together. There were no children and no pregnancies that anyone heard about, and the family avoided asking.

Excerpted from Improvement by Joan Silber. Copyright © 2017 by Joan Silber. Excerpted by permission of Counterpoint Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.