This Heavy Silence
A Novel
Published on 1. August 2018
272 pages
978-1-64060-381-3 (ISBN)
Description
Strong, resilient, and deeply loyal, Dottie Connell farms her family's three hundred acres in rural Ohio alone, having sacrificed love and family for land she does not own. A sudden, inexplicable event leaves the daughter of her childhood friend in her care. Pressured by her community to allow her former fiancé to raise the child, Dottie must face the past she has worked fifteen years to forget.
Spanning a decade,
This Heavy Silence explores the power of the vows we make to others, and, more binding, those we make to ourselves. Evoking the hardship, spring-fed beauty, and the complexities of community in the rural Midwest, this award-winning, beautifully observed novel leads us to question our ideas about motherhood, faith, and the debts we owe.
"Like the land she inhabits and the people she attends, Nicole Mazzarella offers a subtle and enduring beauty, born of intense interiority, and vision both broad and deep."
-Scott Cairns, author of
Philokalia: New & Selected Poems
More details
Person
Nicole Mazzarella grew up in Ohio and writes with sensitivity and precision about rural, Midwestern life. She teaches creative writing at Wheaton College and lives with her husband in Illinois. This is her first novel; it was originally selected by Leif Enger, author of
Peace Like a River, as a finalist for the Paraclete Press Fiction Award.
