We Play Ourselves

<b>Jen Silverman</b> is a New York-based writer and playwright. Jen is the author of the story collection <i>The Island Dwellers </i>(2018) which was longlisted for a PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for debut fiction and the poetry chapbook <i>Bath</i> (2022) selected by Traci Brimhall for Driftwood Press. Additional work has appeared in <i>Vogue</i> the <i>Paris Review</i> <i>Ploughshares</i> <i>LitHub</i> and elsewhere. Residencies and fellowships include: MacDowell New Dramatists and the National Endowment for the Arts. Jen's plays have been produced across the United States and internationally in countries including Australia and the UK; they include <i>Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties</i> <i>The Moors The Roommate </i>and<i> Witch</i>. Jen also writes for TV and film. <i>We Play Ourselves</i> is Jen's debut novel.<br><br>www.jensilverman.com <b>'As funny as it's intellectual this page-turner about crashing and burning is spot-on about ambition infatuation theatre film ethics teens and everything else.' Emma Donoghue author of <i>Room</i> </b><br><b></b><br><b>'Witty...Earnest...Laugh-out-loud...Pitch-perfect' </b><i><b>New York </b><b>Times</b></i><br><br><i>In the pursuit of fame how do you know when you've gone too far?</i><br><br>When Cass - a thirty-something promising queer playwright - receives a prestigious award it seems as though her career is finally taking off. That is until she finds herself at the centre of a searing public shaming which relegates her from rising star in New York to a nobody on her best friend's sofa in L.A. As she comes to terms with the extent of her failure she is forced to question who she is without the thing that has always defined her: her art. So she fills the days by stalking her playwright nemesis of whom she is excruciatingly envious and getting pulled into the orbit of the charismatic but manipulative filmmaker next door. As Cass becomes increasingly involved with her neighbour and the group of pugilistic teenage girls she's documenting Cass begins to dream of a comeback. But when the film spins dangerously out of control Cass is once again forced to reckon with her ambition and her rage.<br><br><i>We Play Ourselves</i> is a darkly funny novel about the cost of making art and the art of making enemies. <br><br><b>'Funny sharp modern - this is an excellent debut novel. Its bold edgy strange heroine has adventures and misadventures screws up again and again but somehow won my love. I couldn't put this book down.' Weike Wang PEN/Hemingway-award winning author of <i>Chemistry</i></b> <b>Reading like a cross between Shelia Heti's <i>How Should A Person Be?</i> and Lily King's <i>Writers &amp; Lovers We Play Ourselves</i> is a wildly entertaining debut novel of female rage self-sabotage the pursuit of fame and the costs of artistic ambition.</b> In deadpan prose that belies the wackiness of Hollywood and Broadway Silverman stages <b>a blistering story about the costs of creating art.</b> <b>As funny as it's intellectual this page-turner about crashing and burning is spot-on about ambition infatuation theatre film ethics teens and everything else.</b> <b>Witty...Earnest...Laugh-out-loud...Pitch-perfect</b> This is a book where the questions are the answers a story of possibility that challenged and expanded the way I think about redemption. Warm in its humanity and cool in its persistent subversion of narrative expectations it's <b>a sharp and modern first novel. I loved it.</b> The multi-talented Jen Silverman knows what she's doing on the page.<b> Funny sharp modern </b>- this is an excellent debut novel. Its bold edgy strange heroine has adventures and misadventures screws up again and again but somehow won my love.<b> I couldn't put this book down.</b> <b>A fiercely smart and wildly entertaining exploration of artistic ambition</b> and what happens when the hunger for fame infects an artist's desire to create something true. A uniquely potent take on female rage and competition that also gorgeously evokes the challenge of developing an authentic self when everything we do can be exploited as content. I loved this book and couldn't put it down. Silverman employs Cass' wry deeply felt often self-deprecating voice to tell this beautifully realized novel about choice ambition and revelation with a nod to feminism in the context of the film and its monstrous director Caroline. All of Silverman's characters are memorable as they drive the carefully plotted thought-provoking story. Happily unlike Cass' failed play t<b>his memorable novel deserves a standing ovation.</b> A playwright's public shame and jealousy traps her in self-doubt in this <b>mordant </b>debut novel... Cass's dark humor and acts of self-sabotage keep the reader engaged. Silverman's <b>genuine stirring </b>novel speaks volumes about the lure and fickleness of fame. The quiet meditations on the precariousness and ever changing nature of success ambition and artwork are the novel's greatest strength. A resonant and thoughtful novel. A novel about what it might really mean to be an art monster. Or at least a monster who makes art. A thoroughly enjoyable entertaining yet serious novel A penetrating exploration of the skewed values of the theatre industry [...] and the perils of the lust for acclaim