Itās not hard to trigger a newish momās āwhat would happen to my family if something happened to meā fears, but it is hard to sustain a quiet story over 350 pages. In In the Quiet, Eliza Henry-Jones does both so beautifully that not only did I feel immersed rather than manipulated, but I stayed up many hours past bedtime to surrender to the world of this book and to the life of this family.
When the book begins, the narrator, Cate Carlton, is already dead and looking in on her family in poignant moment after poignant momentālike when her daughter (Jessa) gruffly stonewalls a grief counselor or a son (Rafferty) pulls a box of the last flowers Cate ever picked from beneath his bed. We donāt know how Cate diedāthe detail that ends up forming the central mystery of the novelābut the family moments are so touching and real that we quickly focus all our attention there and nearly forget that Cate is also missing this critical piece of information. Perhaps because the family story is so strong and each member so individual, the book is satisfying all the way through and I only occasionally noticed the bumpy edge of a clue being dropped on the page and when all is gently revealed, I realized I already had all the information that truly mattered.
The Objective Correlative
The jacket copy of In the Quiettalks about the grief this family alternately endures and learns to cope with, but the story is a lot richer than that. There are daily rhythms to be maintained and reinventedāspecifically (and symbolically), there are horses to be fed, trained, and potentially sold to pay some of the familyās expenses.
One horse, Opal, is the most valuable, the most wild, and is lost to the family around the time of Cateās death. Bass, Cateās widower husband, is looking for Opal because she could help ease the familyās financial burden. Family friend Laura cares for Opal the way she once cared for Cate. Jessaās relationship with Opal is the most dynamicāclinging hard to the horse even as others are trying to get Jessa to let go and ultimately making some strong, hard decisions. All this while Rafferty shies away from Opal for reasons that donāt become clear until much later. I thought I knew why pretty early. I was deliciously and wonderfully wrong.
By using Opal as an objective correlative like this, Henry-Jonesās displacing the familyās emotion onto the horse. Not only is this something that happens frequently in grief (you should have seen my family with a pile of jewelry and a stop watch after my grandmotherās death), this literary device allows Henry-Jones to explore on the surface whatās happening deep inside each of her characters. This is one crucial element of what makes In the Quiet heartfeltly intelligent rather than sappy and sad.
If I had to pick a favorite character in this book, I couldnāt. And if I had to pick a least favorite, I also could not. Both, to me, are a sign that Henry-Jonesās created a well-written, round cast of characters by exploring their humanity and idiosyncrasies at a depth which does the characters, and the reader, justice.
If we look for a moment just at Beatrice and Laura, the two women who grow closer to Bass after his wifeās death, the healing and stealing of the widower being a trope in both literature and life, we find strong, interesting characters with motivations far beyond getting the guy. Thatās wonderful in its own right, but itās much more extraordinary when you consider that this book is being told first-person through the eyes of the woman who lost Bass when she died. Cateās exploration of her history with both of these women, one her sister and the other her best friend, gives an understanding of the gifts they bring to the world of the book and to the wounds that they themselves are trying to heal. It also gives Cate a chance to heal and for us to care about and cheer for both women.
As with blending bits of Cateās history with Laura into the narrative of the present, Henry-Jones gently drops bits of flashback amidst the forward-moving momentum of this book. The result is a lovely, patterned collage of what Cate is seeing after her death and what she experienced while living. I have not taken the time to diagram the placement of the flashbacks, but the bookās rhythm is so soothing that Iād wager they happen at very regular intervals. The mastery of Henry-Jonesās prose is that the rhythm doesnāt feel episodic or repetitive and I donāt think most readers would notice it unless they went looking.
Tears were shed in the reading of this book, but not in the way Iād expected. Instead, my husband found me weeping only as I was wrapping up the final pages. Because of the craft and emotional honesty of In the Quiet, I was so engaged in the tender family portraits that I scarcely had time to mourn the familyās loss until the end. Or maybe it was that the family didnāt really lose their mom until the end. Or at least she didnāt lose them.
In the Quiet is a quiet, beautifully crafted, engaging book. Iāll admit I put off reading it because I didnāt know how good it would be. Donāt make the same mistake.
If you want to see how to transform a potential tear-jerker into a work of literature, or just read a really heartfelt story, pick up a copy of In the Quiet from Powellās Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.
The post Crafting Emotional Honesty in In the Quiet by Eliza Henry-Jones appeared first on A Geography of Reading.
