Kevin Moffett

A science fiction novel presented as an oral history, beginning in the present and covering the next 30 years. Children are being born who are healthy and alert, but have no capacity for expressive or receptive language. Through short entries from numerous characters, many of whom reappear frequently over the years, we see how society responds to these silent children. The book is divided into six parts that correspond to social shifts in public interactions with the silent people.

I like show more books that are written in the "oral history" format, but keeping track of the repeat characters was a bit of a problem. Each entry was headed with a name, date and location, but the individual voices weren't always distinct. I had to keep checking the table of contents to see whether certain characters had appeared earlier in the book, and try to recall their backgrounds. This probably would have been easier in a physical book than in the ebook version that I was reading. I found that it lagged a bit in the middle, as different people told similar stories, but it picked back up again later.

There is an almost apocalyptic tone to the book. Although it takes place in the near future, the American cities and landscapes seem bleak and regressive. Many of the narrators are not particularly likeable, and even the most sympathetic ones have some pretty major flaws. There are lots of good intentions with unforeseen consequences, as well as prejudice, opportunism, and obsession. Fortunately, the bleakness is leavened by moments of love, hope, and kindness.

As someone with a lifelong interest in disability issues, and some professional experience with augmentative communication systems, I found that the book raised some important questions about the nature of language and communication, human rights, autonomy and self-determination, special education and medical ethics. Lots of questions, but no easy answers.

This will be a memorable reading experience for me. An interesting and unusual concept, fairly well executed. There were a few suspension of disbelief issues, but also very much that was entirely plausible. The book explored themes that are important to me, and helped to give form to some of my thoughts. So despite a few complaints, it worked very well for me on a personal level. show less

I thoroughly enjoyed Moffett’s first collection, Permanent Visitors, and was happy to hear word of this second one. Moffett is a master of the quirky, off -beat and often very humorous story. Even in his oddest stories, like “The Big Finish” here, with its talking birds, Moffett still manages to be touchingly poignant and invoke great sympathy in the reader for his characters.

The 9 stories in the collection are:

1. Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events – 34 pp – A story that show more thoroughly deserved its place in the Best American Short Stories of 2010 collection. A writer has to deal with the enraging fact this his father, in retirement starts to dabble with writing and ends up publishing some very powerful stories in literary journals. The way the story portrays the son’s jealousy and annoyance over this is marvelous. But this turn of events, particularly the stories the father is publishing, forces the son to reexamine memories of his mother’s death and reconsider his assumption that his mother’s passing had little effect on the father.

2. Buzzers – 20 pp – A young man goes to Europe to study architecture just as he learns his ill father has died.

3. In the Pines – 27 pp – A lonely widow lives in a retirement home that looks out a on a Civil War battlefield. Because she can’t find any suitable male companionship, she begins to imagine conversations with a solider from the war.

4. First Marriage – 26 pp – A newly married couple transporting a man’s car to Florida get delayed while their cars get deodorized by mechanics because a snake had crawled into and died.

5. Border to Border- 25 pp – An Estonian immigrant who works at an Epcot Center-like amusement park called Small World swallows the crown of his tooth. Without health insurance to pay for new dental work, his taste of freedom in the new world means having to deal with the gross prospect of fishing the crown out when it comes out the other end of him. A gross premise, but a charming portrait of an innocent surrounded by people not as principled as he.

6. Lugo in Normal Time – 22 pp – An alcoholic tries, not very successfully to connect with his ex-wife and teenaged daughter.

7. English Made Easy – 27 pp – A story that blew me away when I first read it in American Short Fiction. A young mother has to deal with the death of her husband, who passed away when she was pregnant. Her days are filled with dealing with a pushy sister-in-law who is excessive in her efforts to keep her brother’s memory alive and a neighbor with Alzheimer’s who almost provides a model for the young widow on how to move past painful memories. Per usual in a Moffett he mixes all this poignant, heartfelt stuff with quirky situations – here a brother-in-law who got into trouble for having sex with a puppet.

8. The Big Finish – 22 pp – A man who does bird shows on a cruise ship has to deal with an amorous boys and a pair of birds who talk to him, mostly letting him know how much they preferred their previous trainer.

9. One Dog Year – 21 pp – A sick and elderly John D. Rockefeller spends his last days overlooking the beach with his manservant and the doctor he’s paying a hefty sum to keep him alive so he can reach his goal of living to 100. He realizes a life spent saving and planning for the future left little opportunity to savor the moment – but now he wants to begin doing that, as a stunt pilot offers to give him a ride in his plane. show less

It makes sense to compare this book to [b:World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War|8908|World War Z An Oral History of the Zombie War|Max Brooks|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1386328204s/8908.jpg|817]; they are similar, in that they both use testimonials to slowly paint a picture of an event.

I just loved the concept of The Silent History - all of a sudden children are being born without the ability to comprehend or create speech. I do love a good psychological sci-fi that posits a show more situation and then just goes with it. It was fascinating how different characters interpreted being Silent in such different ways (as a disease or disability, as just a new variation, as a message, as a return to "real humanity", etc.).

The Silent community has many strong parallels with the Deaf community, especially when it comes to the fight between seeing it as a disorder and trying to fix it with medical technology, and not seeing it as a personal problem but as one with a society that tries to "fix" everyone to make us all the same instead of changing the environment around us to allow everyone to participate equally. It was interesting to read about the range of parental reactions to having Silent children, where some would immediately embrace it and attempt to learn the "face talking" language that Silents use with each other, some would hold hope that their child would be able to learn language someday and would spend all their money and time on speech therapy, some would encourage their children to make other Silent friends while others would prevent their children from seeing any other Silents, some immediately jumped on a new medical "cure" while others were horrified that they should be expected to change their children at all...etc.

I didn't love all the characters, but I didn't really hate any of them either. I liked seeing the same event from different perspectives, it helped to empathize with each person. Everyone is trying to deal with this sudden and confusing situation as best they can, and we all have different coping mechanisms.

So, I really liked this book. And it's cool that it's an app too, but I don't think I really missed out on anything by not owning any apple products. If you want, you can just read a chapter a day and you'll have the same experience, pretty much. show less

A collection of nine short stories -- “pedigreed” stories you might say, since eight of them were previously published in literary journals like McSweeney’s, Tin House, and Harvard Review, and two of those were selected for volumes of The Best American Short Stories series.

They're quietly funny, mostly accessible but sometimes confounding, and often melancholy but in a comforting way that says we get through difficult times. I enjoyed the originality in premise or voice in most of the show more stories, especially the title story about a young writer, his writing mentor, and his father who in retirement "began writing trueish stories about fathers and sons"; and another that opens when an architecture student, on board a plane awaiting takeoff to Italy, receives a text that the terminally ill father he just visited has died ... the tension builds beautifully as he hesitates, deciding whether to go back or go on.

I gave up on one (curiously, the only unpublished) story and skimmed another. But I’ll look for more by Kevin Moffett.

(Review based on an advance reading copy provided by the publisher.) show less