The Year of Silence [Hardcover]

Madison Smartt Bell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1987

Marian died by her own hand exactly one year ago. The author approaches Marian's death from the viewpoints of the people that touched her life including her lover, her best friend, and even her enemies.

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

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Following Straight Cut and Zero db and Other Stories, this is Bell's fifth book and fourth novel. While the chapters here do not unfold in a linear progression, and most could stand as short stories on their own, they are bound by a narrative connection that goes deeper than the chapters' common location, Manhattan, and the often overlapping characters. In the first chapter we meet a young concert pianist who practices on a painted wood keyboard and rents a closet-size room in the apartment of an old college friend, a teacher named Weber whose girlfriend, Marian, died one year before. In a following chapter a computer jock fights with his girlfriend and meets the gaze of a young woman in a bar; in another, Weber, who is also a karate expert, agonizes when Marian has an abortion. Midpoint through the volume, readers are given Marian's sad, last druggie days. In other chapters, she is seen through the eyes of a panhandling dwarf in her Upper West Side neighborhood, is glanced at by two jaded neighbor cops and, in the end, at a time coinciding with the first chapter, is recollected by a childhood friend. Like the bridge Weber climbs in the first chapter, this novel's structure combines delicacy and great tensile strength. Bell's voice is increasingly diverse, accurate and, in this book of mourning, powerfully moving.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

At novel's open, martial arts expert Weberclearly distraught over the apparent suicide of the girlfriend who dumped himis rescued from the upper reaches of the Brooklyn Bridge by his roommate Larkin. What follows is the story of girlfriend Marian's disaffection and death, told mainly through the stories of others: Weber; his sparring partner, Sinclair; devoted Gwen and "hanger-on" Crystal; the panhandling dwarf Marian befriended; the police; even Larkin's missing brother. Each voice is distinctive, its purpose clear, so the repeated shift in viewpoint does not disconcert. Though we don't learn why Marian diedundoubtedly the pointthis is a deft, unsentimental look at the demimonde. Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 194 pages
• Publisher: Ticknor & Fields; 1st edition (September 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0899194907
• ISBN-13: 978-0899194905
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,596,826 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars AS I LAY DYING in Manhattan, June 16, 2004

By 

Rocco Dormarunno (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Year of Silence (Contemporary American Fiction) (Paperback)

I had the pleasure of studying under Madison Smartt Bell at the University of Iowa's Writers Workshop in the late 1980s, and THE YEAR OF SILENCE was the only impression I'd had of him. But what an impression! Set in various parts of Manhattan and my home town of Brooklyn, I was in awe of this writer's command of his craft and his knowledge of the city. I figured he's spent decades honing his talents. When I arrived at the workshop, I discovered that Bell was NOT from New York City and that he was younger than me. Naturally, I wanted to strangle him.

Anyway, THE YEAR OF SILENCE is a wise and sympathetic novel that prompted as many re-readings as there are narrators. Every voice is honest (even the con artist/breaking-and-entering specialist) and, above all, appealing in their own ways. Structurally, the multiple points of view is very effective, especially when you consider the book is set in the city where a person can touch so many lives (and is set in the city where everyone thinks their point of view is so important). However, the fact is that the death of the protagonist, Marian, did affect so many people who, on the surface, seem so disaffected. Marian, herself, is given a chance to speak before her untimely passing. In its way, the novel is a sort of AS I LAY DYING set in 1980s New York City.

The strength of THE YEAR OF SILENCE, and I'll repeat this, is the profound appeal, the extreme humanity, of its narrators. I almost wish each one had his or her own novel. My favorite is an invalided old woman whose grandson races her through the NYU area in her wheelchair. Although she had only known Marian in passing, the news of her death prompts one of the most elegant but simple reveries on life, death and old age. THE YEAR OF SILENCE captures New Yorkers in a way that has rarely been done before. Of course, it was written by an out-of-towner.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Seems the characters took the title to heart, June 20, 2006

By 

FMR (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Year of Silence (Contemporary American Fiction) (Paperback)

This book is about how the suicide of a woman named Marian affects those who knew her. All these people have problems. They hate their jobs. They hate their lives. Some hate both. An example of this is a cop more interested in winning a crime pool than really helping people. We don't really get to know the people in these stories including Marian, which would seem to me to be essential. She has bad luck with men, had a couple of abortions and got into drugs. We really don't find out much more about her than that. The only character we really get to know is the dwarf panhandler/pickpocket named Jocko. His story is well fleshed out and so is he. We get a sense of who he is and how he sees the world. I would have liked to read more about him. If not for the story about him reading this book would be a complete waste of time. I found this book's title to be very appropriate since the characters don't have much of a voice. I would give this one and a half stars if I could, but since I can't it has to settle for one.