One-Night Stands with Wild Strangers

Joselyn Takacs interviews Amy Silverberg about her debut novel, “First Time, Long Time.”

By Joselyn Takacs

ALLISON, THE PROTAGONIST of Amy Silverberg’s debut novel, First Time, Long Time, is a writer in her late twenties cobbling together a living the way many Angelenos do, with a couple part-time jobs: leading book clubs for wealthy women, adjuncting at a local community college. The book’s premise is somewhat more unexpected. One day, Allison settles down to write at a Silver Lake bar and finds herself sitting next to the most famous radio DJ in the United States. Despite the odds, the misgivings, and a 30-year age gap, Allison ends up dating this Howard Stern–esque DJ, and we watch as she is swept into this famous man’s orbit.

First Time, Long Time is interested in fame and its effects — on those who have it and those who seek it. But more to the point: how fame complicates love. The novel thrums with wit and humor. Allison’s side gigs (the book club, the community college) provide the occasion for some wonderful passages about why literature matters now — not to mention the frustrations of impressing that on a disinterested audience. “They acted as though they wouldn’t be changed by a novel no matter what it was,” she laments at one point, “no matter if I found a writer that spoke so wholly to who they were — some unarticulated version — that they’d wonder if they’d written it themselves.” Often, the book takes comedy itself as a subject. Allison’s brother is a stand-up comedian — a role Silverberg knows intimately as one herself.

Comedy was one of many topics that came up in my conversation with Silverberg about her debut. The two of us went to graduate school together at the University of Southern California. When we spoke in April, we discussed her journey to finding her footing in the novel form, the female comedic voice, and the enduring appeal of Howard Stern. Read the full interview at the Los Angeles Review of Books.