Author, Rodney Hall

The 29 short prose fictions that comprise Silence were accumulated over a period of eight years and were written while Hall was engaged on other book projects, a time lapse that has ultimately produced a wonderfully innovative collection of monographs.
 
Hall’s latest book is truly a superb collection of short stories all held together with the recurring theme of ‘silence’, and yet each has its own unique character, sometimes sad, mystical or contemplative, occasionally angry or frightened. 

At only 200 pages, at least 30 of which are blank, this is a diminutive but fabulous collection which I found was best read in short sessions, a story or two at a time as each took me by surprise with its own distinctively startling imagery and I often found the writing so poetic that I wanted to reread sections in order to absorb the subtle links between them.

Interestingly, Hall uses real voices and incidents from the past as central points to the stories, echoing several great writers and even including accompanying notes at the end of the collection to confirm their contextual veracity.

The styles, subject matter and locations are creatively diverse, but the quality of the writing remains at a constant and immeasurably high standard and although I’m undecided as to whether this collection is actually poetry or prose, I greatly admire Hall’s highly innovative permutation of both.
 
I will be taking great pleasure in recommending this jewel of a book to our readers. 

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