The Silenced Voice is a coming-of-age story that will resonate with readers following the #MeToo movement and the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandals that have shaken the world. The novel is a sobering yet satirical take on what often really occurs behind the curtains of everyday family life.
Synopsis
When twelve-year-old Margaret Murphy is raped, she doesn’t tell anyone. For years, the secret quietly gnaws away deep inside of her, until one day she makes the choice to leave her family, forcing her husband Joseph and their four children to navigate the wilderness of life without her.
The remote sanctuary Margaret and Joseph forge early in their marriage from the brambles and blackberries of rural Pennsylvania’s backwoods is intended to make their children self-sufficient and to shield them from harm. But what begins as an idyllic safe haven, quickly breaks down as the Petrone siblings transition from adolescence into young adulthood. In her twenties, Leigh Petrone, the middle daughter, begins to suspect her parents’ choice to remove themselves from modern society stems from a darker, untold past. As her family unravels, Leigh starts to view what she perceived as a utopian childhood through this new lens, revealing devastating truths.
Spanning six decades, The Silenced Voice explores how the aftereffects of trauma can ripple across generations. It tells a complex story about interwoven relationships and a family’s journey to question what they want from life, how they can learn from the choices they’ve made, and how they can ultimately find forgiveness.