Silence [Paperback]

Christopher Brookhouse (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2009

Days before her high school graduation, Nicki Groh runs away from the New Hampshire town where she has grown up. In the months that follow, Nicki will find her way back home, a young woman much changed from her earlier self.

Harriet Groh, Nicki's adoptive mother, is the person most affected by Nicki's absence. Much of the story is told by her, and much of the story is about her, how she "disappears," too, from an earlier self and discovers her own voice, even if silence is the language in which she finds it.

Harriet's voice continues the tradition of female voices that Mr. Brookhouse began in Running Out, his first novel, which Anthony Burgess called "A triumph of poetic economy and a powerful evocation of place." He continued this voice with A Selfish Woman. Silence once again displays Brookhouse's elegant, economical prose.

Silence is a deepening narrative about the roles we play, how we fit into them, how we choose them, or how they choose us. The novel is structured around earth, air, fire, and water-essential elements of the ancient world whose influence remains powerful in ours.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Novelist and poet Brookhouse underwhelmingly examines the repressed desires of the Groh family and its community in Jeffrey, N.H., following the disappearance of teenage daughter Nicki. Set to graduate high school and attend Princeton, Nicki runs away the morning after a classmate, Willie Boots, tries to rape her during a boat ride. The novel becomes less about the circumstances surrounding Nicki's departure and more about the people she leaves in her wake—her outwardly distant but loving father; her sexually and emotionally conflicted mother; the young teacher with whom Nicki had been having an affair; Willie, who continues to pine for Nicki; and other minor townsfolk whose gossip peppers the novel. Told in sparse, economic prose that echoes the self-protective silences the characters employ to protect their secrets, Brookhouse's slim book has moments of revelatory power, but overall, the narrative simplicity lends the project an air of banality. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

A quiet novel of personal and seasonal change set in a small town in New Hampshire.
Nicki Groh seems to have it all. She's about to graduate from high school, and although she just missed being valedictorian, she's off to Princeton in the fall. But a week before graduation she agrees to attend an evening boat party with Willie Boots, a hot-shot pitcher for the baseball team and son of a prominant businessman. Willie tries to rape Nicki, who barely escapes. She swims to shore and is rescued by Russell Blatt, a former classmate who who's about to leave for greener--or at least warmer--pastures. Nicki decides to go with him, not simply to escape the Willies of the world but also to get away from a heated but dead-end sexual relationship she was having with the high-school math teacher and the pressures of going to an Ivy League school she's not all sure she wants to attend. Nicki and Russell, who much to Nicki's chagrin is gay, travel to North Carolina and find jobs waiting tables at a summer resort. Back in New Hampshire, village life begins to unravel. Nicki's adoptive parents are at first concerned about and then resigned to her absence. Meanwhile, Willie's father grows estranged from his wife, who in a spasm of midlife unpredictability decides she wants to become an actress. Willie gets a summer job as a security guard and finds himself entangled, both literally and metaphorically, with Joan Doyle, who casually dispenses sexual favors to local high-school boys. When Nicki comes back at the end of the novel, she's serene, mature and pregnant. Brookhouse(Dear Otto, 1995, etc.) writes confidently and unobtrusively about authentic issues. --Kirkus

What links all the characters is the book's title, which is also the book's last word:"silence". A lot can be said with silence , but only if silence is understood as a kind of intuitive conversation, not a denial of thought or feeling. And yet, silence aside, the youngsters in this book are marvelously captured in their nervous, right-on exchanges with each other. Brookhouse is so good at observing and listening to older adolescents that his book could find an audience among readers of young adult fiction. Still, with chapter sections headed Water, Earth, Air and Fire, and with a terse lyricism, Silence signals its wider, deeper and elemental reach-a theme about finding one's way, or not. --National Public Radio Review

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 152 pages
• Publisher: Permanent Press; hardcover edition (January 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1579621791
• ISBN-13: 978-1579621797
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,908,313 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Horrible Book, February 9, 2009

By 

Runa "HPLunatic" (Charlottesville, VA, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Silence (Paperback)

There is very little I can say about this book that is positive. It was interesting seeing a book written in present tense--don't see many of those nowadays. It seems like the characters really had some great potential, and pretty much wasted it all by sleeping around. The dialogue and situations were highly unrealistic--nobody actually talks or acts like that. The book itself was so cookie-cutter, no personality, no humor, no nothing. Cold, boring narration. There were also moments when Harriet, the main character's mother, spoke in first person, and those didn't really work with the rest of the book.[...]

Rating: 1.5/5

4.0 out of 5 stars Will read more!, February 2, 2009

By 

Brandie "mama bear" (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Silence (Paperback)

Silence is the first novel I have read by Christopher Brookhouse. I was drawn to it because it is set in a small town in New Hampshire and as someone who vacations in New Hampshire about every 2 years, I am fascinated by it! It's such a different setting than the Chicago suburbs that I call home.

I admit that when I read the first chapter, I thought I had the entire plot line of the book figured out in my head. Oh, I was so smart, I was so sure of what would happen in the book. Until I read chapter 2! Brookhouse took a story that I felt could have been written in a formula-fiction sort of way and instead wove it into an interesting story.

The story follows Nicki and her adoptive mother Harriet and those that know them. Everyone, however, knows everyone else - the whole small town feeling. Nicki seems to have it all - good looks, good personality, and brains. And yet, after an attempted rape, she runs away from it all just a few days before high school graduation. The story then continues to follow everyone through the summer and into early fall.

I really enjoyed the story. I think I will read some of Brookhouse's 8 other novels in the future!

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Quiet, March 23, 2009

By 

L. J. Baker "Donura" (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Silence (Paperback)

I had some difficulty sorting the change of voices at the beginning of this story, however, once into it some of the static seemed to calm down and each character developed they own rhythm. The subtleness of all of what Nicki Groh had to deal during her life seemed to come together and implode on her as the result of one simple act of violence.

Each of Mr. Brookhouse's characters seems to have their own set of unique quirks that are not at all obvious. He slowly draws them out and reveals them not only to the reader but to the other characters as well. Silence shows how destructive it can be to not only the person keeping the silence but to everyone they come in contact with along the way.

This is a slow thoughtful read that will leave you with plenty to think about after you have finished the last page.