The Majority

Silver (The Tincture of Time) draws on the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg in her incisive latest. Raised in Brooklyn in the 1940s, Sylvia Olin Bernstein grows up to become a vocal advocate for gender equality and a Supreme Court justice known as “the contemptuous S.O.B.” Silver frames the narrative as a memoir by the elderly Sylvia in which she recounts her childhood, college years, early career as a lawyer, and experiences as a young wife and mother. Though the reader gets to know Sylvia as a litigator, Silver keeps the focus on her personal life, and particularly on the women in it: the mother who dies when Sylvia is a teenager, the Holocaust survivor cousin who helps to raise her, the law school roommate who experiences sexual harassment, and the daughter with whom Sylvia has a fraught relationship. The parallels to Ginsburg are obvious, but Silver wisely gives Sylvia her own path to travel, emphasizing how her professional goals both shape and are shaped by her experiences as a woman. Ginsburg’s many admirers will be captivated by her literary counterpart. Agent: Sarah Bowlin, Aevitas Creative Management. (July)