Review: The Silence Project by Carole Hailey
A few months ago, I read a truly excellent sample kindly sent to me by Corvus, and it turned out to be a book that was right up my street. I love the concept of the Very British Cult (The Rapture by Claire McGlasson is a fine example), and The Silence Project takes this and combines it with feminist politics along the lines of such greats as The Power by Naomi Alderman or Vox by Christina Dalcher.
When I was lucky enough to get a copy of the full book, I got exactly what I was after, and a few surprises besides.
The first half of the book is the fictional memoir of Emilia Morris, daughter of cult-leader Rachel of Chalkham. Rachel one day decided to stop talking in order that she might hear more clearly, and builds a (the) Community around her who believe this is the way to solve the world’s problems. Grown weary and frustrated with the same old minor protests, Rachel eventually decides, with many of her followers, to immolate herself in a final global protest.
This was the story I was expecting, and it fully delivered. I’ve read several books this year that lay out the frustrations of people (usually women) who have grown up in the long cold shadow of a famous and subsequently neglectful parent — and I won’t lie, I enjoy them immensely. It’s a literary kink I didn’t know I had! And Emilia’s narrative rings so true, filled with frustration mixed with the emotional maturity of adulthood’s hindsight. Emilia is a massively sympathetic character in this portion of the narrative, and my heart really ached for her.
But this truly is a book of two halves. At the midway mark, Rachel lit her pyre, and I wondered what the rest of the book would bring. So often, the death of the famous parent is the end of the story. But Emilia’s story becomes her own as she goes through her personal aftermath following her mother’s death, but also the way the Community continues to grow in power and force, moving, Emilia argues, away from the original principles her mother put in place. The unexpected location for much of this portion of the book is the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country I know very little about, but is relayed in vivid, beautiful, ugly detail in Hailey’s book. This move was one I wasn’t expecting, but it was a pleasant surprise.
The thing that surprised me as the novel turned its focus to the resolutions the Community proposes to what it perceives as the world’s problems, is that the word ‘eugenics’ is never mentioned. A lot of very dodgy concepts — concepts that Emilia initially buys into — are placed on the table, but that link is never directly drawn. Nevertheless, Hailey doesn’t hold back on making Emilia a far more problematic figure as her story continues, and no less loveable for that. There were moments when my heart really ached for her.
I’ve made a few literary comparisons in this review, and I think The Silence Project will be an excellent read for anyone who enjoyed the works mentioned. But The Silence Project really goes further than delivering a neat package, a hero’s journey, or a standard cult narrative. This is a book more complex and knotty than it appears from the outset, and I think might spark some very interesting conversations.
The Silence Project by Carole Hailey is released on February 9th, 2023, and is available for preorder here.
Review written with thanks to the publishers and Netgalley.co.uk for an e-advanced review copy.