Anytime a book employs more than one narrator, the book runs the risk of having too many voices and too many perspectives. It can muddle the narrative and leave the reader feeling exhausted from all the back and forth. But The Weight of Silence, by Heather Gudenkauf, does a better than average job at weaving its mulitple tales together into one compelling novel.
The overarching plot takes place over two long, heart-wrenching days. In the light of the early morning, two families awake to discover their daughters are missing. Callie and Petra are only seven and best friends. When both girls are not in their beds, their small town community jumps into action to find them, with one set of parents fearing the worst and the other gripping tightly to denial, convinced that the girls are just off playing. As the police and FBI start to search, the history of these families, their secrets and the ties that bind them are brought to the surface. Complicating matters further is the fact that Callie doesn't speak - at all. A selective mute, she relies on Petra to speak for her. As time passes and the parents turn more and more frantic, questions linger: where are the girls? Why did they seemingly disappear? And what does Callie's voice have to do with it?
The novel is Gudenkauf's first and she does an excellent job at creating a thrilling, quick-paced and well-developed story. Though a good deal of the narrative involves characters recounting their past, Gudenkauf manages to tie all of the strands together at the end without making it feel forced or contrived. There are five narrators, who take turns telling the story. While the perspective changes depending on who's speaking, there isn't a lot of "he said, she said." Rather, Gudenkauf focuses on how each person is coping with the situation, from Martin's desperation to find his daughter and Antonia's refusal to see the truth about her husband to Callie's helplessness and fear. The image I conjured in my head was one of several balls of yarn unraveling, as each person told his or her story. The more they unraveled, the more tangled with each other they got, until the story came to its conclusion and the unraveled yarn was now a unified knot.
One of the most interesting aspects of the book was the presence of Callie (and the lack of Petra) as a narrator. In life, Callie is silent, her thoughts left to Petra to express. But as the story unfolds, Callie's voice is among the strongest, her perspective one of the most important. In contrast, Petra's story is left untold. Though in life she is voice to both herself and her best friend, she doesn't speak in the book (save for one brief chapter at the beginning). The differences between sound and silence are critical to the book - characters ponder the things left unsaid versus the things everyone knows. And in the end, it will be Callie's ability to find her voice that will change the course of the story.
With the rotating narrators and the additional flashbacks, it was hard at times to focus on the main plotline, the one centered on finding the girls. Every now and then, I'd forget what was going on in the present because the narrator for that chapter was focused on the past. And the ending, while satisfying, doesn't offer some of the answers I was looking for as a reader (though I suppose that might be the whole point). Still, Gudenkauf writes very well and handles sensitive issues (such as abuse and alcoholism) without being maudlin or unrealistic.
I read The Weight of Silence for my monthly book club and I would highly recommend this book for other book clubs as well. There's an abundant amount of material for conversation and the twist of using multiple narrators is a good jumping off point for discussion. Just as each narrator in the book has his or her own perspective, each reader brings his or her own point of view to the story. Read Heather Gudenkauf's book and reach your own conclusion.
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