The Silence Project by Carole Hailey – Writing, Reading and Talking

The Silence Project, Carole Hailey’s 2023 debut novel, is an alternate history, imagining the rise of a cult based around silence.

One day in 2003, Rachel Morris decides to stop talking. Overwhelmed by a feeling that there is too much talking and not enough listening in the world, she moves out of the village pub where she lives with her publican husband, setting up a makeshift camp in the garden. There she stays for years, not saying a word, scribbling her thoughts and instructions in a series of notebooks. Though initially mocked by locals, her actions strike a chord with a lot of people, to the extent that she gains a huge, global following, called The Community. Tragically in 2011, Rachel, and thousands of her followers, burn themselves to death as a final protest against heartless lack of listening. Traumatised by this event, Rachel’s daughter Emilia, finds herself in the sort of isolated position that often makes people vulnerable to the lure of cults. She starts work for The Community, but after a relatively enthusiastic start, finds disillusionment setting in. Emilia eventually decides to write a book, based on her mother’s notes, which she hopes will counter the lies and distortions that an increasingly extremist Community leadership has created around her mother’s image.

So, what to make of it? Personally, I wondered if the book was about writing. It is only when Rachel stops talking that she starts writing. Reading and writing, in contrast to speech, tend to encourage revision, second thoughts, re-readings, re-writings. Writing offers a grounding reference to which we are able to return. This can be useful when people start making stuff up about the past to suit themselves, as The Community leadership is prone to do.

I don’t often get the chance to discuss my thoughts about a book with its author, but in this case the opportunity did arise. In October 2023, Carole Hailey gave a talk at Maidstone’s inaugural literary festival. During questions at the end, I asked if the book was about writing. The answer was ‘no’. But it was a friendly no, mentioning Ray Bradbury, who apparently stormed out of an event when confronted with a student who suggested an interpretation of Fahrenheit 451 that Bradbury did not intend. Carole said she would not storm out. A book takes on an independent life once published, and she was pleased readers were considering it in their own way.

For a few days afterwards I mulled this over. Had I not ‘heard’ the book clearly enough? Had I failed to put aside my own preconceptions? Well, yes. On the other hand, a good novel often invites readers to find something of themselves in the writing. And even if Carole Hailey had not intended reflections on the nature of writing in her book, I would say it still invites them.

During her talk, Carole mentioned Donald Trump as someone who speaks but does not listen. I would also add that Trump famously never reads. And apart from social media posts, he only writes via brow-beaten ghost writers – such as Tony Schwartz, who noted never seeing a single book in Trump’s office or apartment during a year and a half of working on ‘The Art of the Deal’. Compare this with Barack Obama, a famously avid reader and writer. Maybe all of our leaders should both read and write extensively.

For me The Silence Project can be a name for the quiet act of reading and writing. It might all seem to be a one way street with a book, the writer talking and a silent reader listening, but it’s a bit more complicated than that. After all in reading The Silence Project I sort of wrote my own version, in conversation with its author. In the end the best compromise between talking over someone and silence, is conversation.