Book Summary

"Silent" is a gripping novel that details the dire consequences faced by a small-town Ontario woman in the 1950's and 1960's whose need to conform to the religious/social expectations of her community lead to a marriage of exploitation and abuse. Throughout the book, the protagonist strives to survive this terror and her feelings of solitude and shame. She attempts to hide the hideous truth of her life from others. Finally, she feels forced to make a life-shattering decision, a decision for which she pays with the rest of her life.

In 1964, after a life shattering event, Polly Dewart is committed to Blackburn Psychiatric Hospital. Now, sixty-four years old, she has been living at Blackburn for thirty years disconnected from everyone and everything she knew from her past life in small town Ontario. Polly does not speak yet she connects to other patients around her by surreptitiously observing them and learning their stories.

One day, a figure from her former life arrives at the hospital and helps her connect to her past by providing the opportunity of giving voice to Polly's own story.

As her story unfolds, we learn that Polly was a nave, hopeful small-town girl in the 1950's who never expected any man to look at her, let alone pick her for his bride. She is thrilled when a brooding, enigmatic man takes an interest in her and asks her to marry him much to the shock and dismay of her conservative, Protestant family. Polly, wanting only to be loved, marries him anyway and finds herself in an abusive relationship. She endures the marriage for years, hiding her shame and suffering from others.

After the birth of her daughter, she determines that she can no longer live with the abuse and thus makes an explosive decision, changing her life and her family's life forever.