The Quality of Silence
I’ll risk my life for you.
On 24 November Yasmin and her ten-year-old daughter Ruby set off on a journey across Northern Alaska. They’re searching for Ruby’s father, missing in the arctic wilderness.
More isolated with each frozen mile they cover, they travel deeper into an endless night. And Ruby, deaf since birth, must brave the darkness where sight cannot guide her.
She won’t abandon her father. But winter has tightened its grip, and there is somebody out there who wants to stop them.
Somebody tracking them through the dark.
The competition
Throughout the year our publisher partners share a range of brilliant opportunities for our reading groups to take part in. Earlier this year, courtesy of Piatkus, 30 reading groups received a set of Rosamund Lupton’s imaginative thriller, The Quality of Silence.
Three lucky groups won the chance to meet Rosamund and discuss the book over afternoon tea, and we wanted to share the experience of one of the groups with you. Here is Christina, with her story of Gloucester Book Club’s afternoon with Rosamund.
Gloucester Book Club meets Rosamund Lupton
On a dreary Sunday in November, we were lucky enough to share afternoon tea with the author Rosamund Lupton, in front of a table laden with cakes and a roaring fire in the grate. What a treat!Rosamund’s most recent novel The Quality of Silence was the main subject of our discussion. It had provoked differing opinions in our book club, and there was a clear gender divide in our thinking.
The book tells the story of a long journey north in the depths of the Alaskan Arctic winter undertaken by Yasmin and her profoundly deaf daughter, Ruby. They were in search of her wildlife photographer husband who may have died in a freak explosion, or who may be the victim of a fracking industry conspiracy, the architects of which seem to be following the couple through the desolate sun-less tundra.
Was the premise of a mother taking her daughter into such danger unrealistic?
Rosamund reminded the group that the journey had not been planned by Yasmin, but each incremental step had led to her being helpless and hitching a lift with a truck driver on an ice road. Yasmin’s naïveté was inspired by the author’s own, when she travelled to Alaska to research the book.
What was the inspiration for the novel?
Rosamund explained that this was the first novel she’d written in which the subject matter hadn’t been chosen by her publisher and that the book represented her own long felt desire to write about deafness, which she herself has experienced as a child. Fracking was also important, which she felt was a sadly under-represented threat to the world, and isolation when the blanket of ready communication that we rely on is no longer available. She related how cruel life could be for a deaf child and she gave some chilling accounts of how fracking had altered the face of parts of Alaska.
As a previous screenwriter, Rosamund agreed that she tends to write very visually and because of this the reader is readily able to picture the conditions in the Alaskan landscape. She does not grieve for the characters when she has finished writing the book, but often feels a sense of relief.
What’s coming next?
Rosamund was engaging, and willing to answer our abundance of questions, not just about The Quality of Silence but about her two other novels, Sister and Afterwards.
Discussion flowed freely, time just flew, and tea and cakes disappeared – soon it was time to say goodbye. Before the afternoon ended Rosamund revealed that she is working on her next novel, but wouldn’t let us have a sneak preview! She did, however, let us know that both The Quality of Silence and her debut novel Sister, are currently in development to be made into movies.
Get involved
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