The Silent History
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A thrilling read from beginning to end: World War Z meets The Children of Men
Sometime right around now, doctors, nurses and—most of all—parents begin to notice an epidemic spreading among newborn children, children who are physically normal in every way except that they do not speak and do not respond to speech. They don’t learn to read, don’t learn to write. Theories abound—maybe a popular antidepressant is the cause. Maybe these children, lacking the ability to use or comprehend language, have special skills of their own.
Unfolding in a series of brief testimonials from parents, teachers, friends, doctors, cult leaders, profiteers, impostors—everyone touched by the silent phenomenon except, of course, the children themselves—The Silent History is both a bold storytelling experiment and an unexpectedly propulsive reading experience. Originally conceived and serially published as an award-winning iPhone/iPad app by Eli Horowitz, the former publisher of McSweeney’s, along with two acclaimed novelists (Matthew Derby and Kevin Moffett) and one intrepid coder (Russell Quinn), the book has been re-edited and, at times, rewritten into a definitive, nuanced and unputdownable text, a story that is timely, timeless and terrifying.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Form follows, explores, and transforms function in this novel, originally written as an iPhone/iPad app and now being published, and holding its own, on the printed page. Short narratives field reports, log entries, anecdotal memoirs offer a jigsaw-puzzle oral history starting in the present (2011) and advancing into the future (2044), documenting the evolution of a disaster, as an increasing number of children fail to develop language, not due to physical or mental impairment, but due to indifference. Whether this indifference is the result of drugs, the environment, mindless innovation, or biological mutation (no one can be sure), for "silents," language has no meaning. A teacher describes futile attempts at classroom management; a politician recounts using the situation to career advantage; a doctor details speech therapy without verbal communication; a New Age groupie confesses to feeling envious. Because they are marginalized, ostracized, and demonized, some silents withdraw into clandestine communities, rather than submit to technology that imposes speech, if not self-expression. Storytelling, both on screen and in print, relies on character, setting, plot, theme, and, of course, language. Three authors work together here to master these elements, presenting an ingenious variety of perspectives and locations that create a richly textured vision of a dystopian future. If the ending is a letdown after so much inventiveness, readers are left with plenty to think about, including the role of language in family and society, personal development and interpersonal relations, and communication and community.
