A redemptive tale of ruined lives righted again through love, grace, and good fortune, The Silent Time contains memorable characters, compelling narrative and passages of lyrical beauty.
Rowe’s dramatic background shines through in the rich characters he has created and the believable relationships he weaves for them. Leona Merrigan is a young woman who endures devastating personal hardships, and must cope as the single mother of a deaf child in early-twentieth-century outport Newfoundland. She forms an unlikely friendship with William Cantwell, a politician in St. John’s, who is also haunted by his past. Together they struggle to provide Dulcie, Leona’s deaf daughter, with the education she desperately needs, and in the process find companionship and redemption. The story of growing up deaf in a remote community in the 1920s is both fascinating and moving. As Leona delivers her daughter to the ship that will finally take her to Halifax for school, I found myself in tears.