The Silverberg Business

by Robert Freeman Wexler

In 1888 in Victoria, Texas, for a simple job, a Chicago private eye gets caught up in the poker game to end all poker games.

Shannon, a Chicago private detective, returns home to Galveston, Texas for a wedding. Galveston’s new rabbi asks Shannon to find Nathan Silverberg, gone missing along with a group of swindlers who claim to be soliciting money for a future colony of Romanian Jewish refugees.

What seems to be a simple job soon pushes Shannon into stranger territory. His investigations lead him to a malevolent white-haired gambler, monstrous sand dune totems, and a group of skull-headed poker players trapped in an endless loop of cards and alcohol, who may be his only means to survive the business.

With The Silverberg Business, Robert Freeman Wexler has delivered a gloriously strange hard-boiled tale that crosses genres and defies expectations.

Genres: Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Historical Fiction, Westerns

302 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 23, 2022

About the author

For some writers, prose is a means of constructing an analogue of reality. For Robert Freeman Wexler, fiction is a means of de-constructing reality. Yet his stories have such a strong sense of linguistic integrity, it’s hard to believe that he isn’t reporting his experiences from a parallel universe. His fiction inhabits the place where the real world turns into oatmeal, where unexpected juxtapositions cause uncontrollable anxiety.

His books include novella, IN SPRINGDALE TOWN, from 2003, which was reprinted in THE BEST SHORT NOVELS OF 2004 (Science Fiction Book Club) and again in MODERN GREATS OF SCIENCE FICTION (iBooks). First novel, CIRCUS OF THE GRAND DESIGN (2004), THE PAINTING AND THE CITY (2009 and reprinted 2021), and short story collection UNDISCOVERED TERRITORIES (2021). New novel THE SILVERBERG BUSINESS is due out in spring 2022.

Reviews

[Valerie Nadal · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best way I can describe this book is surrealism meets hard-boiled detective fiction, which is a combo I didn't know could exist, yet here we are! To be sure it's a pretty strange book, but I also had trouble putting it down once I got into the story. And you can tell that the author did a ton of research into the setting, late 19th-century Texas. All in all, a good and unique read.

[Jordan J J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Silverberg Business
Robert Freeman Wexler
2022
265 pages
Western, Surreal, Historical Fiction

This book is cool, but I’m not sure I know what it’s about. That often happens when I read a book. I don’t go in for themes and all that much, I leave that to better critics. What I can tell you is this is a bizarre tale that has as much charm as any hard-baked mystery novel you can find. I was excited to pick up every chance I had and will be thinking of its imagery for a long time.

Knowing nothing of the writer or publishing house, I wanted to see what this local press, Small Bear, had to offer. This title spoke to me and the cover alluding to civil war uniforms, skull headed soldiers, and poker to boot, I was hooked.

This is a detective novel at its heart, so if you like crime novels this would be to your liking. Although I don’t know anyone could ever crack the case before the author explains what is going on, be my guest. And just what is going on? What is this Silverberg Business? Well, that’s where protagonist Chanan comes in. A Jewish man himself, he’s been sent to investigate the disappearance of the both the money and the man representing it.

Different that most cowboy novels that are dusty and dried out, this book holds a similar frontier flair, but with the added lure of the sea and surf. Though the detective agency Chanan works for is out of Chicago, the brunt of the action takes place in coastal Victoria, Texas in the year 1888. We learn that neighboring Galveston, TX is the hometown of Chanan, a place already storied for surviving storms and their surging waves.

As is so many times the scam, a land deal wherein new immigrants to eastern US are sold a false bill of good and their representative, Mr. Silverberg, goes missing along with the thousands collected to purchase land for the new colony. With little beyond hits wits and patience to go on, Chanan hits the town of Victoria, TX, to pick up Silverberg’s trail. You’ll need patience, too as it’s roughly 60 pages into the book before any skull heads are introduced. The story begins with a dream so making the jump to the surreal ‘other world’ Chanan must traverse to win his freedom is not too difficult.

I won’t say much about the skull head referenced in the cover other than there are more of them, and they all serve a purpose. The lore and history, vernacular and verbiage are grounded and kept me in the story despite the ridiculous nature of the concepts on the page. Great chase scenes are partnered with oodles of western clichés like whiskey drinking, cornbread on bean eating, and most of all poker playing! By the end of the adventure, you won’t be certain where you’ve gone, but it will be a while before you think about storms and hurricanes the same way.

[Ralph · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Here in skull-head land, time means nothing. The skull-heads are actors on a stage, doomed to perpetual repetition of the same scene."



The Silverberg Business is a very ambitious book. It's hard to pinpoint what genre it is, because it feels very Western while also incorporating elements of supernatural horror. In doing so, Robert Freeman Wexler creates a very fascinating world. However, the overall narrative and characters felt uninspiring.

It was difficult reading through the book because the novel faces a lot of pacing issues. The first act feels especially slow and could have been cut down in half. I also think the novel would have been much better if told from a third-person point of view, which would have given us a better understanding of the other characters and their motives.

Still, I found the overall setting very alluring. I like how Wexler is able to introduce mythical characters while staying true to Western roots and adapting historical figures. While I was disappointed in the overarching writing, I'm interested in reading future writings by him.

[Itasca Community Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simon says:
A fresh addition to the burgeoning weird western genre (you know, westerns that are weird), Wexler’s book begins with a seemingly simple mystery, and emerges as a fascinatingly strange tale. Set near the turn of the century in Texas, big city detective Shannon is tasked with finding a missing person (Silverberg)--a potential victim of crooks selling useless land as paradise to Jewish immigrants (the book has a strong theme of displacement, within and out of this dimension). As Shannon uses his sharp instincts and cunning to solve the case in the human realm, his shrewd wits are useless in the fever dream that awaits, in which the layer between reality and the fantastic is soup-skin thin. The main attraction is the sparse, brass tacks writing and the complex, well-drawn main character; Detective Shannon keeps his wits about him as the world goes topsy-turvy, until he can’t any longer. The pacing is a bit shambolic, but that’s one of its charms. For fans of the fantastic, weird, and... westerns.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this book from Bookpeople for the blurb on the back, which called it a “philosophical Jewish-Texan retro-neo-noir”. On that, it delivered. Furthermore, there were long passages on poker, my favorite pastime, and it was largely set in Galveston, from which my Jewish forebears hail. It was a bit fantastical for my tastes, but the niche audience this was written to appeal to, indeed includes me.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Jewish detective is running around Texas in 1888 trying to find Silverberg who seems to absconded with funds meant to resettle Jewish Refugees in the United States. At first this seems like a historical mystery but a third of the way thru, it dives into the deep end and things get crazy. The ending is fairly long, it takes the protagonist years before he readjusts back into society.

There are several historical characters in the book, some quite surprising. A decent read.

[A13 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Можно честно сказать, что обложка книги круче содержимого. Вообще роман, конечно, странноватый - не хоррор, не мистика, не вестерн, а все это кусочками. Они иногда не стыкуются, но ничего - когда еще прочитаешь про частного детектива, играющего в покер с черепоголовыми существами в салуне, потом сбегающего на странной летающей машине, но неудачно, потому что вывести из салуна может только овца по дну океана между гигантскими кровожадными крабами.

[Peter Karlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A western and a detective novel with supernatural elements and lots of poker? It’s like this book was tailor-made for me. I loved going back to a world where nothing happens fast, there’s no technology and characters have time to sit and ponder. There’s also a wonderful moodiness to the proceedings that seamlessly blends with the surreal elements.

[Sam Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review pending

[Rowan · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. This very well may be a good concept for a book, but the pacing was off and the narration stilted.

[John Day · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very strange book.

[Rebecca Kuder · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this book is brilliant. Just read it and see!

[SteveRv · Rating 4 out of 5]

Novel was a surrealistic plot line. I liked it. The writing kept me engaged although I always have problems following dream sequences. Never know how to separate the literal from the allegorical

[Brian Vizek · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very strange an odd book. I almost gave up on it,but maybe half way in I started to like the book so I pushed on.

[Bob Bailey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Worth a gander, supernatural historical fiction

[Liz]

Normally this book would have been my level of weird, I couldn’t connect with the story. I gave up at page 100.