Claudia Silver to the Rescue

March 11, 2013
In her fiction debut, screenwriter and NBC Universal Creative Director Ebel returns to the early ’90s to tell the story of 24-year-old Claudia Silver, who is trying valiantly to learn how to live after growing up in a dysfunctional family from which she is now estranged. Claudia is fired from her production assistant job and then her 16-year-old sister Phoebe, last seen two years ago, appears on Claudia’s Brooklyn doorstep, desperate to escape their crazy mother and her abusive deadbeat boyfriend. How can Claudia refuse? But as well-meaning as she is, Claudia’s hunger for love and lack of a normal vantage point for healthy relationships vastly complicate matters, and she winds up in an ill-advised affair, which ends a longtime friendship and breaks up several households. So who, in the final analysis, will rescue whom? The author delivers a satisfying and unexpected answer to that question. Readers will root for this deeply flawed but ultimately appealing heroine. Agent: Betsy Lerner, Donow, Carlson & Lerner.

April 15, 2013

Unlike her roommate, Bronwyn, Claudia Silver is not beautiful, thin, or receiving an allowance from a wealthy father. Nor does she have prospects for an intellectually stimulating job in a creative field. Unlike the usual chick-lit heroine, however, Claudia doesn't waste time bemoaning the hard facts of her life. Despite setbacks and missteps, she quixotically sets out to rescue her 16-year-old half sister, Phoebe, from their emotionally distant Brooklyn bohemian mother and the woman's abusive live-in boyfriend. Readers stay transfixed as self-deluded but well-intentioned Claudia, confident and careless, lurches from one train wreck in her life to the next, focusing on dreamy future scenarios as Phoebe calmly sets about saving herself. Comic sparks fly and fast-paced dialog sparkles in this first novel from a Los Angeles author with television screenwriting experience (Cold Case; Law and Order). VERDICT This hilariously cringe-worthy tale of woe about a jobless young woman surviving by her wits in New York City is smart and savvy chick lit with plenty of snark. [See Prepub Alert, 12/7/12.]--Laurie Cavanaugh, Holmes P.L., Halifax, MA

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