A History of Silence

‘Jones is a daring writer who can be relied on to ignore expectation, and is becoming one of the most interesting, honest and thought-provoking novelists working today.’ * Guardian *
‘Poetically observed detail and an affecting evocation of the past will reward readers interested in the way our history (even, or especially, that which we don’t know about) can shape us.’ * Bookseller and Publisher *
‘This is a poetic and deeply felt musing about what can be discovered, or what can simply be remembered, and the effect this has on one’s purview. Set against the literal and figurative backdrop of the 2011 earthquake that devastated Christchurch and that shook his own foundation, Jones’s memoir is a melancholy and luscious exploration of the amnesia that allows us to move forward in life.’ * Booklist *
‘A knockout, a fresh and immaculately paced study of the process by which old information becomes new, and one of the bravest and best-written memoirs I have read.’ * Telegraph *
‘This memoir of a family life of secrets is an evocative and lyrical piece of writing that springs to life at the first page and never lets up….Jones is an intriguing and unpredictable writers, and this memoir is almost poetic in its stark and literary quality….An exquisitely written [book] and one that is remarkably well crafted.’ 5 star review * Good Reading *
‘It would be difficult to think of another novelist as original or fearless as…Lloyd Jones.’ * Monthly *
‘A History of Silence quickly establishes itself as a captivating memoir…Jones has written a brave and remarkable tribute to his forbears.’ * Readings Monthly *
‘Memoir shrinks themes and holds them close to the bone. It brings out the poet in Jones as he scours family letters and bureaucratic records in New Zealand and Wales for clues. It’s a meandering investigation…but with Jones the meandering is a pleasurable experience, gently paced and studded with lovely phrasing.’ * Weekend Australian *
‘The stories Jones uncovers speak of loss, displacement, unbearable sadness, but also courage.’ * Canberra Times *
‘Jones skilfully gives the reader the point of view of the growing child making the best of things in a charmless Wellington suburb, but as the child becomes the man…the book gathers an urgency and poignancy that at times becomes as painful as pulling flesh across barbed wire, and we become aware the lineaments of grand tragedy can be found in the back streets of Lower Hutt.’ * Otago Daily Times *
‘A History of Silence is as strange, wilful and compelling as his fiction.’ * Saturday Age/Sydney Morning Herald/Canberra Times *
‘Throughout this brilliant memoir the ultimate impact of the book lies with how openly and humanely Jones responds, as an author and a son, to a truer picture of his family. In this, it does what I suspect we’d like all family memoirs to do. Before filling the silence, it listens for what might lie behind it.’ * Australian Book Review *
‘Scenes from Jones’s childhood bubble up into consciousness, circle and are absorbed back into his search for the truth that lay behind them. It’s this most of all that give Silence its poetic, haunting quality.’ * NZ Books *
‘Those who enjoy quality literature should savour this deeply moving and beautifully communicated memoir.’ * Library Journal *
‘Achingly poetic.’ * Seattle Times *

Lloyd Jones was born in New Zealand in 1955. His best-known novel is Mister Pip, which won the 2007 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the 2008 Kiriyama Prize Fiction Category, the 2008 Montana Award for Readers Choice, the Montana Fiction Award and the Montana Medal for Fiction or Poetry. It was also shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and has been made into a major feature film, directed by Andrew Adamson (Shrek and Narnia). His other books include Hand Me Down World, The Book of Fame—which won the Deutz Medal for Fiction at the 2001 Montana New Zealand Book Awards and the Tasmania Pacific Fiction Prize—Here at the End of the World We Learn to Dance and Biografi. He has also published a collection of short stories, The Man in the Shed. Lloyd Jones lives in Wellington.

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