A word about Silence

She’s finally coming to light. My beloved Silence: a novel I have been working on for at least five years and which I have dreamed of writing for almost ten years–she is coming out into the open, publishing on Sept. 24, 2024. This woman — this character. I am not overstating my adoration for her, when I say that I believe this is the best book I have written yet. And I love all my books! But this one–hello! How will I ever surpass it? How will I move on from living in the world of this beauty?

I loved researching her life. I loved learning about colonial medical practices and apothecaries. I loved learning the slang, finding the rhythm and cadence of 1720s American speech. I loved making my Puritan ancestor a sensual, fulfilled woman, and then a grieving and heartbroken daughter, widow and mother. I loved her before I wrote about her, and I love her still. I have shown some photos of my travels around the US, and I wrote about my South-to-New England road-trip with sister and cousin in 2022. I ate in an inn she was likely to have eaten in, and listen to the waves wash through the pebbles on the Hingham shore. Here are a few photos of that trip.

I walked in her footsteps in Hingham and Cohasett, the streets of Boston, and the main street of Bolton. I read every family history detail I could find–went to their church, saw where they lived, learned what they ate, the names of their neighbors, the professions of her father, her in-laws, her brothers. I won’t say I relived her life, but I reimagined it. I carry her DNA. I can join the DAR because of her. I feel as if I–miss her?

How is it possible to miss someone you never knew? John Koenig’s Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows calls this anemoia: Nostalgia for a time you’ve never known. And maybe that’s not it exactly, but something keen and sharp. Something painful, like the loss of a child, which we both share. Something melancholy, like the feeling of being outcast, as when I was pushed out of our family’s world upon our divorce in 2001–church friends, school moms and neighbors who were no longer mine–we share this. Something that drags you down, like postpartum anxiety and depression, which I suffered deeply with my first child, and ended up a single mother on the verge of a breakdown. The feeling of being silenced, which I experienced many times in my childhood, my marriages, and my career. Hush now. Button your lip. You can come if you don’t talk about that. That story is not worth printing.

Silence bore all of these, and lived to triumph. And so, as a matter of fact, have I. Join me as she comes into the world again–my foremother. My ancestor. My heroine. My truth-keeper. My heart.
Silent no more.

Book Tour Public Events: West Coast

• Sept. 27, 7 pm: Copperfield’s, Petaluma, Book Launch: https://www.copperfieldsbooks.com/event/2024-09
• Oct. 5, 2-3 pm: The BookSeller, Grass Valley. https://www.thebookseller.biz/event/2024-10
• Oct. 17, 7 pm: Books Inc., Alameda https://booksinc.net/event/2024-10-17/julia-park-tracey-books-inc-alameda
• Nov. 16, Madelyn Helling Library, Local Authors event, Nevada City, CA (time TBA)

Book Tour Public Events: East Coast

• Oct. 19, 11am: Witch Parade and Fair, Providence RI
• Oct. 20, 4 pm: Hingham Art Walk, Old Ship Church, Hingham MA
• Oct. 24, 7pm: Weymouth Historical Society, Tufts Library, Weymouth MA
• Oct. 25, all day: TikTok Live from Boston, various sites. (Times TBA)
• Oct. 26, all day: Boston Book Festival, Boston MA
• Oct. 29, 7 pm: Newtonville Books, Newton MA
• Oct. 30, all day: Podcast and live TikTok, Salem, MA

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