There's Going to Be Trouble

A Novel

By: Jen Silverman

Narrated by: Marin Ireland

A woman is pulled into a love affair with a radical activist, unknowingly echoing her family’s dangerous past and risking the foundations of her future in this electrifying novel.

“An exhilarating novel of star-crossed romances and radical politics, with writing so evocative I swear I could smell the tear gas.”—Nathan Hill, New York Times bestselling author of The Nix and Wellness

Minnow has always tried to lead the life her single father modeled—private, quiet, hardworking, apolitical. So she is rocked when an instinctive decision to help a student makes her the notorious public face of a scandal in the small town where she teaches. As tensions rise, death threats follow, and an overwhelmed Minnow flees to a teaching position in Paris. There, she falls into an exhilarating and all-consuming relationship with Charles, a young Frenchman whose activism has placed him at odds with his powerful family. As Minnow is pulled in to the daring protest Charles and his friends are planning, she unknowingly almost repeats a secret tragedy from her family’s past. Her father wasn’t always the restrained, conservative man he appears today. There are things he has taken great pains to conceal from his family and from the world.

In 1968, Keen is avoiding the Vietnam draft by pursuing a PhD at Harvard. He lives his life in the basement chemistry lab, studiously ignoring the news. But when he unexpectedly falls in love with Olya, a fiery community organizer, he is consumed by her world and loses sight of his own. Learning that his deferment has ended and he’s been drafted, Keen agrees to participate in the latest action that Olya is leading—one with more dangerous and far-reaching consequences than he could have imagined.

Minnow’s and Keen’s intertwining stories take us through the turmoil of the late sixties student movements and into the chaos of the modern world. Exploding with suspense, heart, and intelligence, There’s Going to Be Trouble is a story about revolution, legacy, passionate love, and how we live with the consequences of our darkest secrets.

©2024 Jen Silverman (P)2024 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“What a juicy and spirited novel Jen Silverman has given us! There’s Going to Be Trouble is crackling with excitement and written with great verve and flair. . . . Truly a dazzling reading experience.”—Jami Attenberg, author of The Middlesteins and All This Could Be Yours

“Jen Silverman’s remarkable new book is a thrilling journey through two generations of protest—the riotous streets of modern-day Paris, and the campus sit-ins of the Vietnam era—brilliantly weaving together the stories of two people separated by decades but confronting the same question: What happens when affairs of the heart collide with affairs of the state? This is an exhilarating novel of star-crossed romances and radical politics, with writing so evocative I swear I could smell the tear gas.”—Nathan Hill, author of The Nix and Wellness

“Spanning from the late ’60s to the present day, from the chemistry labs of Harvard to the streets of Paris, this novel asks prescient questions about personal sacrifice, political responsibility, generational secrets, and the space for love in times of revolution.”—Oprah Daily

Not for me

This was a disappointment. The ending was unresolved and the overall story seemed pointless as a result. The narration was OK. there is just no compelling reason to listen to this book.