Thirteen-year-old Philippe is left alone on his family’s farm when everyone else goes to visit his ‘mad’ Aunt. But when he wakes in the morning, there’s an odd silence; a quiet that extends from peaceful into the uncanny, unsettling the faithful dog Isabelle and leaving Philippe wondering what’s going to happen when it breaks…
This is a dark fantasy novelette; a strange (in a good way!) mix of sci-fi, horror, fantasy, rural life…it’s a short, tense read that starts off slow and creeps up behind you, never quite showing you what’s so terrifyingly looming.
The horror side of the story is well done. The birds are subtly introduced, and the silence that comes with them is as terrifying as the raptors themselves. I loved that Philippe has to get himself out of a bad situation, and his solution is masterful; I sometimes feel as if horror victims are too passive, and it added a nice air to have Philippe’s rescue of himself go so-nearly-wrong several times – the suspense was excellent. The actual background to the horrors is nicely vague; we (and Philippe) don’t know what they want, why they’ve come, what they’re going to do next – and it lends a suitably terrifying edge to the second half of the book that pervades the ending and leaves you feeling unsettled even after you’ve finished.
However, I was also left feeling that this was half a story. I wanted to know what was wrong with Aunt Helene, and why Philippe’s father carried such a web of silence and secrets around what she’d done; it’s mentioned several times and Philippe himself dwells on it, but it’s never really followed up. I also found the relationship between Philippe and his father frustrating (which actually speaks volumes for how masterfully this has been written) – I was frustrated by the father’s refusal to accept his son’s story, and torn at the conflict between the desire for approval and the rejection for never being good enough that characterises every interaction between them. We don’t really see anything of the rest of the family, and the story focuses on Philippe; I wanted to know what life was like when he didn’t have a looming, half-formed threat hanging over him.
The writing itself is good; the world is easily sketched, never too detailed, and the surroundings – particularly during the attacks and the ‘otherworldly’ scenes – are nicely set up. Philippe himself is an interesting character; flawed, frustrated, and still sympathetic. I liked that the horror isn’t ever really spelled out, and there isn’t a resolution; it’s a nice (well, in a manner of speaking) ending to a horror story. However, I would have liked to see more depth, more detail, more revelations on the ‘normal’ side of Philippe’s life, and maybe see more of the mundane horrors that sit behind human faces.
© Kate Coe, June 2016
At First, You Hear The Silence by Mark Fuller Dillon
Published January 4th 2016
http://markfullerdillon.blogspot.ca/
Review copy courtesy of the author
29 pages
