A History of Silence – Lloyd Jones

Description

Author: Lloyd Jones
Publisher: Penguin Books NZ (2013)
ISBN: 978-0-143-56947-3

In brief

A searing and surprising memoir from one of New Zealand’s most celebrated novelists. A History of Silence is a quiet reckoning with family, memory, and the things we don’t say — until the ground literally shifts beneath our feet.

About the book

When the Christchurch earthquake struck in February 2011, the physical damage was immediate and visible. But for Lloyd Jones, it cracked something deeper. Amid the ruins, he begins a search for the fissures in his own life — ruptures of memory, history, and truth.

In A History of Silence, Jones travels backward and inward, uncovering the hidden chapters of his family’s past. A mother who disappears emotionally. A naval captain who drowns at sea. A child saved by a marriage. A silence that covered everything.

The memoir moves across time and place, from childhood in Lower Hutt to Docks in Wales, from the familial to the political. Along the way, Jones explores the way stories — and the absence of them — shape who we are. With the precision of a novelist and the vulnerability of a son, he draws a portrait of a life lived in the shadow of unanswered questions.

This is not a tale of trauma as spectacle. It’s a quiet, devastating, and exquisitely written account of what happens when you stop pretending you don’t need to know the truth.

Reviewer praise

“A powerful and unexpected memoir from a master storyteller.” — The Guardian

“Exquisite writing. Jones reveals his past in fragments, each page shimmering with restraint.” — New Zealand Herald

“One of the most honest explorations of masculinity and family myth I’ve read.” — Paula Morris

“Lloyd Jones takes his scalpel to the silence and finds a heart still beating.” — North & South

“An exceptional writer at the height of his powers, excavating the ground he walks on.” — Metro Magazine

“A History of Silence is the companion piece to Mister Pip. It’s the silence between novels finally spoken.” — Listener reviewer