Cyclone of Silence

by Benedict Freedman, Nancy Freedman

Having struggled to deny his innermost torment, the young scion of royal Anglo-Irish stock finally surrendered to his obsessive passion. He took her, there in his room, then whispered the beautiful and profane words that expressed the moment and the desire:

"Thou has ravished my heart, my sister, my bride…"

The lovers were Sean and Elizabeth Tenner. Brother and sister, direct descendants of England's magnificent Plantagenets, their romance—doomed and notorious—produced an impact that would span generations and continents.

For within the Tenner family, genealogy was maintained as a living thing, an ancestral presence, a formidable institution that each member was bound to preserve and protect. By their act of sacrilege, Sean and Elizabeth had challenged, violated, defiled all heritage and tradition. The consequences of this intense relationship are exacted on several levels. Shocked into speechlessness by the violent wrath of his father, Sean becomes a brilliant but mute outcast; Liz is sent away to live with an aged aunt in Ireland. Together and separately, they are haunted by emotions and memories that cannot be erased.

But all this happened at the turn of the century. The ultimate trial occurs some fifty years afterward—when Tenner progeny in modern California attempt to resolve their fatal legacy: a powerful inheritance of incest and outrage.

Cyclone of Silence is one of those rare novels that achieves the full scope and sweep of a saga in the grand manner. It is at once a sensitive, memorable portrayal of a love between brother and sister, and the remarkable chronicle of an awesome dynasty.

317 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Benedict Freedman, the son and grandson of writers, was born in New York City in 1919. While in high school he studied accelerated courses for gifted boys and graduated with a medal for mathematics. At fourteen he entered Columbia University as a premed student, but had to drop out at sixteen because of his father's sudden death. For a time Benedict continued private study of higher mathematics. Freedman’s chief interest was in games and recreational mathematics, but he also assisted in writing a textbook and worked on actuarial problems as clerk to a consulting actuary.