Anything Is Good

Two Bronx boys take radically different paths in a novel about the limits of genius and the loss of home, by a “terrifically gifted” author (Anita Shreve, New York Times-bestselling author of The Stars Are Fire).   Ralph Silverman was a childhood buddy, a foreign film buff, a victim of bullies, a boy genius.

He held long conversations with his pet parakeet and spent countless hours on a computer, creating mesmerizing music and solving problems in philosophy.

He was a friend of great scholars and the son of a wealthy outer-borough businessman with shady associates and a second family. And, as he begins to take over the story from the narrator, he has found himself in South Florida, physically abused and then expelled into an unfamiliar world—with a broken pair of glasses, no money, and no shoes—by the distant cousin his sister left him with before disappearing forever.   From the celebrated author of Searching for Bobby Fischer, Anything is Good is a hypnotically compelling tale of a man haunted by the fate of his childhood buddy, and of that friend’s pleasures and misfortunes as he navigates an unhoused life—a life more complex and dramatic than a bypasser might ever imagine.  Praise for Fred Waitzkin’s previous books   “Very few writers can deliver a story with this much heart…a great novel.”—Sebastian Junger   “Waitzkin’s propulsive narrative makes for compelling reading from first page to last.”—Gabriel Byrne   “A gem of a book.”—The New York Times