The Silence

American Kindle cover

​This is a dual timeline novel set in Sydney in 1967 and 1997. Although classified as a mystery, it is also a social commentary on the issues of race, alcoholism and family violence.
 
Isla lives in London but rushes home to her father Joe in Australia when he calls and tells her that he’s under suspicion for a murder that happened thirty years earlier. It seems he is the last person who saw their neighbour Mandy Mallory alive in 1967. The case has only just been opened due to Mandy receiving an inheritance and her whereabouts are unknown.
 
Weaving back and forth between 1967 and 1997, we uncover the stories of individuals who lived next door to one another: Joe and Louisa, recent emigrants from England, and their little daughter Isla who is minded during the day by Mandy, the wife of policeman Steve.
 
Louisa dislikes Australia and misses England, while Steve increasingly suffers from the traumatic nature of his work which involves the forced removal of Aboriginal children from their parents. With a job working on the Sydney Opera House, Joe struggles to keep Louisa happy, but domestic violence and alcoholism rear their ugly heads. Likewise, Steve is desperate to start a family but Mandy doesn’t want children and so their conflicts increase. Isla has her own demons, dealing with alcoholism. And back in her old house, she remembers being more fond of Mandy than her mother, but being scared of Steve. As she slowly unpeels the past, she wonders if it is possible her father Joe was involved in Mandy’s disappearance? After Louisa takes Isla back to England, Joe finds solace with Mandy and complications are set in play that are bound to end badly. 
 
The dual narratives are well-constructed and the outcome of the mystery feasible given the circumstances but there is little to like about any of these individuals between their drinking and fighting. Isla is abrasive and in fact it is the tortured Steve who is perhaps the best character portrayal. The ambivalent feelings of English migrants struggling with the alien surroundings of Australia give a true reflection of what it was like for many.

When a novel is exceptionally good, one tends to be forgiving of historical anachronisms but they can become an irritation if the reading experience is less enjoyable for whatever reason.

And it is simple technology that can trip up any author.

Yes, it is accurate that travel between the UK and Australia by air was prohibitively expensive for the average person and thus most travel was by sea. Unfortunately, there is a problem in the ease in which the characters then pick up the phone and just call one another. International direct dialling was not yet a possibility in 1967 and all calls had to go through international trunk exchanges, usually booked in advance for a specific time. These calls were very expensive, only used for emergencies or important occasions. In reality, most of the communication between Louisa and Joe would have had to be by aerogramme (air letters) or, in case of urgency, by telegram.

Also dubious is whether Sydney (i.e. city or suburban) police officers were sent off to rural Aboriginal settlements to take and distribute children to care homes. If this did happen, then I’m happy to stand corrected.
 
The author’s notes carry a lengthy polemic on the history of enforced separation of Aboriginal children from their parents, which is well-known to Australians but probably not to readers in other countries. For anyone who wants to discover more about the “stolen generation”, it is recommended they seek out authentic books written by Aboriginal authors.
 
Unfortunately, the anachronisms extend to the cover which shows distinctly American-style houses, not at all Australian.

​The ones below are more accurate in showing an Australian style of house although it is  c. 1890 Melbourne rather than something more in keeping with 1960s Sydney. 


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3 stars
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(Thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC.)

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com
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Booktopia

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