Elizabeth L. Silver discusses the first pages of her new novel, The Majority, her decision to combine multiple real-life personas (and her imagination) to create a fictional Supreme Justice, her choice of beginning with a prologue-like first chapter to introduce her reminiscent narrator and set up the stakes, and the power of a great first line.
Silver’s first pages can be found here.
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Elizabeth L Silver is the author of the forthcoming novel, The Majority (Riverhead, 2023), as well as the memoir, The Tincture of Time: A Memoir of (Medical) Uncertainty (Penguin Press, 2017), and the novel, The Execution of Noa P. Singleton (Crown, 2013). Her work has been published in seven languages, and optioned for film. Also an attorney, Elizabeth has written for The Washington Post, New York Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, and McSweeney’s and currently teaches creative writing with the UCLA Writers Program. She is the founder and director of Onward Literary and lives in Los Angeles with her family.
Passages: Elizabeth L. Silver on The Majority