Sunday's Silence: A Novel [Paperback]

Gina B. Nahai (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2003

East meets West in acclaimed author Gina B. Nahai's mesmerizing story of a journalist on a search for the truth about his father's death -- and his own past -- among the mystical, snake-handling Holy Rollers of Appalachia. When Adam Watkins, illegitimate son of ninety-year-old preacher Little Sam Jenkins, learns that his father has died from a snakebite and that a woman named Blue, a fellow handler, is being charged with murder, Adam abandons his assignment in Lebanon and goes home for the first time in twenty years. Almost immediately, he is drawn into a dark and exhilarating relationship with the purple-eyed beauty Blue. Carried to Appalachia from the mountains of Asia as the child bride of a languages professor, she is both outsider and enigma. Through Blue's and Adam's interwoven stories, Nahai brings to life a land of stunning beauty and heartrending poverty and explores both the triumph of passion over reason and the cross-cultural mysteries of faith.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

How different is Iran from Appalachia? Iranian-born writer Nahai's first two novels, Cry of the Peacock and Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith, were set in her native land, to great effect and rave reviews. Now, in a thoughtfully executed third novel, Nahai takes on Appalachia, illuminating another region whose people are united by a fundamentalist faith, their beliefs as exotic to, and misunderstood by, most Western readers as those of the people of Iran. Foreign correspondent Adam Watkins is stationed in Lebanon when he receives news that Little Sam Jenkins, the father he barely knew, has died of snakebite. A snake-handling preacher who had survived nine decades of hard living and 446 snakebites, Sam finally succumbed to the venom of a snake given to him by Blue, a gorgeous Kurdish woman born in Iraq, and herself a skilled snake-handler who never fit in with the Holy Rollers. Adam, having tried for 18 years to create a new life for himself, returns home looking for answers: What drove Sam? And was Blue merely testing Sam's faith, or did she intend to kill him? A strong sense of geography and religious history provides the backdrop as Nahai explores the enigma of charisma, opening a window on an insular world and rendering the "other" America explicable. Alternating with Adam's story is the first-person account of Blue, her voice charged with the mythic, seductive power of a Scheherazade. Faith versus fanaticism, fear as a motivating force for seeking salvation these themes are examined, as events both tragic and redemptive unfold. This multifaceted work expands Nahai's fictional universe in new and curiously fitting directions. Agent, Barbara Lowenstein. (Nov. 1)Forecast: Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith was a bestseller on the West Coast and has been translated into 16 languages. The Appalachia setting of Nahai's latest may startle her fans and lead to slow sales at first, but strong reviews should attract new readers.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Adam Watkins, the estranged bastard son of an Appalachian snake-handling minister, has removed himself from his hick past. Now a foreign correspondent in 1970s Beirut, he must return to Tennessee when he learns that his father has been murdered. His search for the perpetrator leads to Blue, a beautiful Kurdish Jew and child bride of a University of Tennessee linguistics professor who has hidden his background as an Arab Jew. This is only a morsel of this novel's highly convoluted plot. Nahai (Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith) claims that she wanted to compare the fundamentalist religions of Appalachia with those of her native Iran, but readers looking for objective insights into America's bizarre backwoods faiths won't find much. The book is populated with atypical characters isolated from their respective cultures, so they have little to say about their society. Depictions of Appalachia's miserable poverty and snake-handling traditions are shockingly detailed, but the novel doesn't display an understanding of the fabric of Appalachian society as a whole, focusing only on its fascinating anomalies. Long flashbacks of Blue's life in Kurdistan ring truer than the American scenes, but the hurried overview lacks immediacy. An optional purchase, but this could still be a good read for those who enjoy novels with unusual settings and tangled plots. Reba Leiding, James Madison Univ. Lib., Harrisonburg, VA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Washington Square Press (April 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743459458
• ISBN-13: 978-0743459457
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,430,605 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well crafted and lyrical, but just not believable, October 5, 2002

By 

Linda Linguvic (New York City) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sunday's Silence (Hardcover)

This book is set in the present, in the Appalachian mountains of Tennessee. Isolated by geography and culture, the reader learns about the Holy Rollers and their snake handling religion, and meets some interesting and well-developed characters.

Ms. Nahai weaves a wonderful tale, full of passion and seduction as well as sadness and brutality. There is suffering and also love. And an acceptance of the forces of religion to shape lives. The story moves fast and I couldn't stop reading, enjoying the quality of her writing as much as I wanted to know what would happen next.

I was disappointed however. No matter how rich the description or how hard the author tried to make me understand her characters, she never quite succeeded. I never could identify with any of them or the forces that drove them. And while the details of their pasts were described in detail, I just couldn't believe them. Because of this, while I do acknowledge the author's craftsmanship, I can only give this book a mild recommendation.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Los Angeles Times review, November 26, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Sunday's Silence (Hardcover)

Exquisite...Because Nahai is not interested in sensationalizing such extreme religious notions, "Sunday's Silence" demands that we pay them attention and lets us understand a little better their powerful lure." Los Angeles Times Book Review

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Luminous prose, but where's the plot?, April 4, 2005

By 

Cassie W. (Ohio) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Sunday's Silence: A Novel (Paperback)

SUNDAY'S SILENCE caught my eye at the library when I was looking for something else in the "N"s. The novel, written by Gina B. Nahai, is a departure from her two previous books, which are both novels about her homeland of the Middle East. What attracted me to SUNDAY'S SILENCE, when I read the book jacket, was its setting; the novel takes place in Appalachia--arguably, as far from the Middle East as one can go--and I have always been intrigued by the mysticism of that desperately poor, isolated section of our country. SUNDAY'S SILENCE is the story of Adam and Blue, "star-cross'd lovers" who share Appalachian memories and a connection on not just a physical plane. Having run from his past for more than 20 years, Adam returns to his childhood home near Knoxville, Tennessee, after the death of Little Sam Jenkins, the man who never admitted to being his father. Upon investigating the circumstances of his father's death--a preacher who drank poison, danced in fire, and charmed snakes with his group of "Holiness," cult-like followers--Adam immediately develops an attraction for Little Sam's supposed killer, Blue, a beautiful foreigner with a bevy of secrets. What follows in Adam and Blue's illicit relationship exposes a series of fateful secrets and alarming truths that will change the course of their lives forever.

As I had hoped, the descriptions of noble Appalachia in the novel are beautiful; Nahai's prose is haunting, stunning, luminous, poetic, vibrant, unforgettable. But I finished the novel wholly unsatisfied with what I had read. SUNDAY'S SILENCE is far from a plot-driven text; the novel is almost completely character-driven. Nahai spends an estimated three-fourths of the novel developing the histories of her characters and only a quarter of it discussing how these histories pertain to their current lives. Some of her histories are about insignificant secondary characters in the text, totally detracting from the already skimpy plot of her tale. The relationship between Blue and Adam was just not believable to me--because Nahai spends so little time discussing it, the connection between them is not firmly established. It breaks my heart to give such a beautifully-written novel a mediocre rating--but I couldn't help but be bothered by the lack of plot development and the OVER, yet ineffective, development of Nahai's characters.