Two Bronx boys take radically different paths in this novel about the limits of genius and the loss of home, by a “terrifically gifted” author (Anita Shreve, New York Times bestselling author).

Ralph Silverman was a foreign film buff, a victim of bullies and 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 secret second family. And, as he begins to take over the story from the narrator, Ralph finds himself in South Florida, physically abused and expelled into a frightening world of the unhoused --- with a broken pair of glasses, no money and no shoes.

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.