This Heavy Silence

Nicole Mazzarella’s This Heavy Silence is a good read, and I certainly wouldn’t be able to write anything so vivid in detail intriguing in plot, but as a reader, I was admittedly pestered by a couple things as I progressed. The first was what I would call heavy-handed symbolism. Early in the book a ewe needs to be forced to accept its lamb, and at the end Dottie (the protagonist) grows a flower, and each of these seems unnecessary outside of its role as a symbol. I like a symbol to be tied into the story so subtly that one might miss it as a symbol if not paying attention – that’s how it is in real life. These symbols more remind me of the talk in To Kill a Mockingbird, when Atticus explains to his kids that they are not to shoot mockingbirds – the scene’s role is only to set up the coming symbol. It interrupts the story rather than flowing with it.

The second thing that bugged me was that I had trouble accepting the protagonist, Dottie, as real. I am not sure why this is, but I was willing to admit that my own narrow-mindedness might have been the cause – maybe I’d never met a woman like Dottie and so assumed that no one could be like that. But even after being willing to admit that, doubt tracks me. What is it about this woman that does not seem to make sense? The part that doesn’t click for me is that she is a bull-headed woman telling a reflective story. At times I saw her insight restricted by her personality, but more often it seemed like Dottie made observations and generated insights that were insightful enough that I had difficulty believing her trouble – how could a woman who is able to reflect on that experience so effectively not have had a glimpse of that insight while going through it?

I enjoyed the characters and found the conflicts intriguing, but I think this book would have worked for me better if it were told from a third-person point of view.