You should read this book!
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Knowing Jack is from "the north", I was sceptical that he could capture the spirit of "the south", being a Southerner myself as is the main character . What Jack has captured in "The Silent" is more than a spirit, even though there are enough spirits in the story. He captures the essence of war. I highly recommend that you buy and read this book because it is an experience. Thanks, Jack!
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American Magical-realism comes of age
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Jack Dann is a master of the disturbing, taking left-hand turns through our lives, past and future. As with THE MEMORY CATHEDRAL, history becomes more dramatic, mysterious, and real in the telling from the viewpoint of the odd-man-out. Whether Leonardo or the mute Mundy, Dann draws character and, more importantly, relationships with a hand sure and constantly in motion. More pointed comparisons are not to COLD MOUNTAIN, but rather CATCHER IN THE RYE and MAN'S SEARCH FOR MEANING. Here's hoping Dann is fascinated by another main theme of history, and soon!
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"a heartbreaking, breathtaking novel" --Douglas Barbour
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The Silent is a heartbreaking, breathtaking novel, pouring a young man's traumatic responses to the Civil War into a highly specific, desperately distanced form. As with The Memory Cathedral, his novel of Leonardo da Vinci's experiences in fifteenth century Florence, Jack Dann takes us inside the life of the time, in this case a time of savage war within the American family, all the worse for that. Although The Silent is a novel full of horror, it is also a brilliantly written work with enough touches of humor and humanity to balance the brutality it renders with such grace and intensity. The Silent is a major addition to the growing library of Civil War fiction. Douglas Barbour, Edmonton Journal
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"Most emphatically recommended." --Library Journal
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"It was around the time I saw the spirit dog and became invisible that I forgot how to talk. Getting to be a spirit meant you had to lose things." This fine novel tells the horrific tale of a boy unable to escape from a hell he didn't make and can't begin to understand. Mundy McDowell, not even 13 yet, watches in silence as Yankee deserters kill his father, rape and murder his mother, and set fire to their home. He is struck dumb, his thoughts filled with recurrent 'visions' of sex, death, and mutilation. The line between reality and fantasy is tenuous in his mind, all the more so because of constant hunger and illness. Mundy traverses a nightmare landscape, engaged on a demon quest, seeking an inner peace that no longer can be found. From the author of The Memory Cathedral, this is narrative storytelling at its best-so highly charged emotionally as to constitute a kind of poetry from hell. Most emphatically recommended. Library Journal, May 13, 1998 (LJ's Hot Picks)
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"Most emphatically recommended." --Library Journal
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"It was around the time I saw the spirit dog and became invisible that I forgot how to talk. Getting to be a spirit meant you had to lose things.' This fine novel tells the horrific tale of a boy unable to escape from a hell he didn't make and can't begin to understand. Mundy McDowell, not even 13 yet, watches in silence as Yankee deserters kill his father, rape and murder his mother, and set fire to their home. He is struck dumb, his thoughts filled with recurrent 'visions' of sex, death, and mutilation. The line between reality and fantasy is tenuous in his mind, all the more so because of constant hunger and illness. Mundy traverses a nightmare landscape, engaged on a demon quest, seeking an inner peace that no longer can be found. From the author of The Memory Cathedral, this is narrative storytelling at its best-so highly charged emotionally as to constitute a kind of poetry from hell. Most emphatically recommended. Library Journal, May 13, 1998 (LJ's Hot Picks)
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