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.

About the Author
Robert Freeman Wexler's books include the novels The Painting and the City and Circus of the Grand Design and a collection, Undiscovered Territories. His stories have appeared in Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, Postscripts, The Third Alternative, Electric Velocipede, and Polyphony. He lives in Yellow Springs, Ohio with the writer Rebecca Kuder. His website and blog can be found here: robertfreemanwexler.com.


Reviews

"By subverting expectations in both genre and character, Wexler's writing continually asked me to look closely, beyond initial expectations and surface observations-much like a detective must. This genre-defying novel works at many levels to consider what it means to live as an outsider in a landscape that holds a dark mirror to our contemporary era. And it's not only deeply-layered: it's a page-turner, a wild ride, and an immensely enjoyable read. The Silverberg Business is a mystery that kept me thinking about its deeper questions and haunting images long after the case was closed." - Melissa Benton Barker, Ancillary Review of Books

"It's one of the mostly deeply weird novels I've read in some time, at times hallucinatory and dreamlike, at other times gritty and naturalistic. We've heard a lot in the past several years about genre-blending or ''cross-genre'' fiction, but Wexler starts out by combining two genres that seldom come up in these discussions: the western and the hard-boiled private eye mystery." - Gary K. Wolfe, Locus

"Steeped in the early history of Texas's statehood and laced with eerie portents of supernatural horror. . . . Wexler keeps his twisty plot refreshingly unpredictable and endows his characters-even the non-talking skullheads-with vividly realized personalities that enliven his surreal, atmospheric tale. This weird western packs a wallop."- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Shannon isn't planning to become embroiled in a case while visiting his family in Galveston, but when his old rabbi asks him to look into a group of men who might be swindling Jewish refugees, he can't say no. . . . In this effective, creeping, weird-western novel, time slips, hands fold, and something ancient brews. Wexler refuses to give the reader all of the answers, instead leaving them with a slight, satisfying shiver and visions of stormy seas." - Booklist

"A weird but oddly convincing creature feature."-Kirkus Reviews

Early reader reactions

"Certainly the strangest book I've ever read, and strangeness is a thing that I take to. The grotesque horrors, the impossibilities, the shifting scenes, Silverberg's skull, the skull-heads, the wooden house that turns into a mansion without the detective finding it particularly odd. It is in fact a book not like anything I've ever read."
- John Crowley, author of Little, Big
"A haunting novel that traverses an American West inhabited by nightmarish characters, human and otherwise, The Silverberg Business evokes the unease of classic weird fiction with a contemporary gloss: William Hope Hodgson's The Night Land by way of Jim Jarmusch and Cormac McCarthy. Unnerving and unforgettable." - Elizabeth Hand, author of Hokuloa Road
"Robert Freeman Wexler never fails to knock me out, and The Silverberg Business hits like a hurricane-there's strangeness and beauty on every page. The novel is that rare thing, a weird western that's truly weird, set in a Texas that's simultaneously gritty, violent, and real, yet soaked in myth. Don't miss this." - Daryl Gregory, author of Revelator

"This philosophical Jewish-Texan retro-neo-noir-at once detective story, western, and ambling picaresque-is populated by a memorable cast of schemers, toughs, and oddballs, and rendered with a keen eye and ear for detail." - J. Robert Lennon, author of Subdivision

Praise for Robert Wexler's books

"An unusual, haunting tale from a distinctive new voice." - Lisa Tuttle, London Sunday Times

"This complex, enthralling novel is concerned with relations between art and commerce, and nature and commerce; the importance of the past; the everyday oppression of capitalism; and how art may shape history." - Booklist (starred review)

"As buoyant and airy as a center-ring trapeze act." - Publisher's Weekly

"Quietly stunning." - Asimov's

"Wexler demonstrates a wonderful touch with his writing: to render Lewis's lengthy inner journey through this dream-state without losing a sense of living, vital immediacy is an extraordinary accomplishment."-New York Review of Science Fiction

"A fascinating, deeply bizarre adventure."-Faren Miller, Locus

Book Information
ISBN 9781618732019
Author Robert Freeman Wexler
Format Paperback
Page Count 320
Imprint Small Beer Press
Publisher Small Beer Press