Sunday's Silence

by Gina B. Nahai

Returning to Appalachia to investigate the murder of his father, who was a notorious holy roller, Adam Watkins finds himself powerfully drawn to the suspect, a beautiful woman named Blue, who is rumored to be immune to earthly harm, in a intricately woven novel of love, passion, fundamentalism, and the price of extremism. 50,000 first printing.

Genres: Fiction

320 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2001

About the author

Gina B. Nahai is a best-selling author, and a professor of Creative Writing at USC. Her novels have been translated into 18 languages, and have been selected as “One of the Best Books of the Year” by the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune. They have been finalists for the Orange Award, the IMPAC Award, and the Harold J. Ribalow Award. She is the winner of the Los Angeles Arts Council Award, the Persian Heritage Foundation’s Award, the Simon Rockower Award, and the Phi Kappa Phi Award. Her writings have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Magazine, and Huffington Post. She writes a monthly column for the The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, for which she has been twice a finalist for an L.A. Press Club award.

Nahai’s first novel, Cry of the Peacock (Crown, 1992) told, for the first time in any Western language, the 3,000-year story of the Jewish people of Iran. It won the Los Angeles Arts Council Award for Fiction. Her second novel, Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith (Harcourt, 1999), was a finalist for the Orange Prize in England, the IMPAC award in Dublin, and the Harold J. Ribalow Award in the United States. A #1 L.A. Times bestseller, it was named as “One of the Best Books of the Year” by the Los Angeles Times. Her third novel, Sunday’s Silence (Harcourt, 2001), was also an L.A. Times bestseller and a “Best Book of the Year.” Her fourth novel, Caspian Rain was published in September ‘07, was also an L.A. Times bestseller, was named “One of the Best Books of the Year” by the Chicago Tribune, and won the Persian Heritage Foundation’s Award.

Nahai is a frequent lecturer on the contemporary politics of the Middle East, has been a guest on PBS, CNBC, as well as a number of local television and radio news programs, and has guest-hosted on NPR affiliate KCRW (The Politics of Culture). A judge for the Los Angeles Times Book Awards (Fiction, First Fiction), she has lectured at a number of conferences nationwide, and served on the boards of PEN Center USA West, The International Women’s Media Foundation, and B’nai Zion Western Region.

Nahai holds a BA and a Master’s degree in International Relations from UCLA, and an MFA in Creative Writing from USC. She lives in Los Angeles, where she’s at work on a new novel.

Reviews

[Theresa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm going to round down to 2 stars recorded for this book. When I compare it to other books I've read it is probably closer to 2.25 or 2.50.

I just didn't like this book. It obviously was not for me. The writing was not entirely poor but it was way too wordy and full of over drawn descriptions that made for confusion and chaos. If I'm honest I still don't know what the purpose of the story was. As I said it was full of description and WORDS but STORY and PLOT not so much. It's like it hit a crescendo then just ended. I'm ambivalent about everything in the book. I simply didn't feel much of anything. Again...
just words. The writing failed to evoke a single emotion. Well, that is other than hoping it ended soon. As I write this I wonder if my 2 stars are incredibly generous??


2* 2.5*)/ 3.36*

[Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of a disappointment. In Nahai's other novels that I've read she brought to life immensely interesting characters that I greatly enjoyed reading about. That was not the case in this novel, whose characters I felt estranged from and mostly uninterested in throughout.

The story is centered on Adam, the illegitimate child of an Appalachian snake handling preacher and a dirt poor mother. He is abandoned by both into an orphanage, and when he reaches adulthood he bitterly leaves his origins behind and becomes an international reporter. Much of the book is taken up with the backstory of Adam's family, drawing the brutal lives of his ancestors in coal mining Appalachia.

When Adam's father dies from a snake bite during a church service, Adam for some reason is compelled to abscond from his reporting post in Lebanon and return to Tennessee to angrily seek out who he thinks is his father's murderer. I had trouble accepting this basic premise to the story - that Adam, as described, someone who viewed human connections as a weakness and detested his childhood, would go to such lengths to return to "uncover the truth" of what happened when he accidentally learns of his absent father's death.

The woman who handed Adam's father the snake that killed him is called Blue, and she is of Kurdish Jewish origins. She is brought from Kurdistan to Tennessee to be the wife of a ghostly figure on the faculty of the University in Knoxville. Part of the book describes her family's life in the mountains of Iran and Iraq in a deeply tribal society. She and Adam have an instant attraction, both outsiders who've never felt as if they truly belonged where they are, despite all their efforts. In the end, Adam must decide whether he will save Blue from arrest and whether he can manage to place trust in another human being again.

Nahai's prose, as in her other novels, is really quite good. I like her a good deal as a writer. This particular story and these characters, unfortunately, I just never could find much imaginative sympathy with.

[Paula · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting novel, written about the snake-handling Holy Roller religion in the Appalachian mountains. Adam is a reporter, based in Lebanon, when he picks up a newspaper to find that his father, Little Sam Jenkins, had died of a snakebite wound during one of his charismatic church services. Adam was raised mostly in an orphanage as his mother ran off time and again to try to better herself and his father never acknowledged his birth at all. As soon as he turned 18, Adam had left the mountains of his childhood and never looked back. The death of the father he never really knew is the catalyst he needs to send him back to Appalachia for the first time in twenty years. The woman, Blue, who has been accused of causing Little Sam's death, is a purple-eyed beauty from a Kurdish tribe in Iran who was brought to the states as a child bride years ago.

The first half of the book really tells Adam's back story, interweaving what is going on now as he comes back to the mountains. The second half is Blue's story, again also picking up her life now as Adam investigates his father's death. Throughout the book, the author explores the culture of the Holy Rollers - their snake-handling and poison drinking - which is pretty fascinating.

I enjoyed the story and liked both the main characters, but I did feel like there was a bit of unfinished business at the end.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will admit without beating - at the beginning I thought that it was an affair. I read the excerpt at the back books and I already formed my opinion about her. And it was a mistake.It turned out that the 'Sunday Silence' is a well written story about people who have to escape the past, have to it after some time measure - Adam, Blue or Professor is the most important characters, which is worth writing. In addition, we have an interesting topic of faith and how it can affect people, how did this little Sam.
Instead of pigeons on the cover I would give snakes - at once one can see, that the designer even didn't peek to the book.
I was surprised positively. Would that often happened to me.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of religious fanaticism and blind cultist following of false prophets who claim to have so much faith in God that snakes cannot harm them, neither can poison, yet they abandon their families at will and are serial philanderers (tho' only God knows how, seeing that Little sam's physical appearance leaves a lot to be desired, what with all his scars from over 300 snake bites), moonshining etc

Throw in an exotic mysterious sister with a haunted past, a murder, a rebellious daughter who seduces her former father in law (cauliflower ears and all) and end up fathering his son who's back home to try figure out how his father died, and you have one engrossing read

[Karen Germain · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had a really strong start...I really liked Adam and found his character to be intriguing. I loved that it was set in Appalachia and was about snake handlers. Really, any book with quirky religious beliefs, catch my attention. I thought the book started sliding downhill in the last third, when Blue took center stage. I know it was as much her story as Adams, but I just didn't buy into their relationship. I also didn't think her side of the story was half as interesting as his. Nahai is a strong writer, but this book is uneven at best.

[Nancy Rosenthal · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was w i l d. Had never heard of these snake handling sects of Christianity. Was a little difficult to follow the charcters at first but once you got a handle on all the incestuous relationships , it made sense. Amazing to think this is going on now in the US. ok.........

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was sometimes a bit confusing to pick up the thread of the story with character descriptions going back several generations, however, I found the story fascinating in its descriptions of mining life and holy roller religion.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

I spent a decent amount of time in the 90s visiting the Smoky Mountains and have a growing passion for Appalachia. I loved the structure of this novel and the subject matter.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as her others, but still beautifully done.

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

The description on the cover was appealing, but whole book was weird. It confirmed that America (or some parts of it) isn't totally mentally well.

[Bliss · Rating 4 out of 5]

It says something of my regard for Nahai's novel that I've given copies of it to several friends. It reads like a seductive dream.

[Chris · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn't finish it.

[Brianne Reeves · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting. More of a character study than anything with a plot. It gets a little purple prose-y at times.

[Dana · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't get it. Two totally different story lines told in sequence with a very weak tie in. First half is the history of one character's family. Second half is about another's. Just really poor structure. And we get glimpses of Nazis and Arabs and things that aren't fully developed enough to really feel pertinent to the supposed main story set in Appalachia.

[Katrin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Didn't hold my interest. Started falling asleep. Couldn't finish so I am taking it back