Out of the Silence

WINNER OF THE BEST FIRST AUSTRALIAN CRIME NOVEL, NED KELLY CRIME AWARDS 2006

SHORTLISTED FOR THE DOBBIE LITERARY AWARD 2006 FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL BY A FEMALE AUTHOR

I call his name – only quietly, but he hears me as I knew he would, and wants me as he always does. And we come together – right there in the darkness. And even though there is no way to be certain of any other thing in the world, I am certain that I would risk anything to keep what is between the two of us. For love, I would risk anything, lose everything.

Out of the Silence is a stunning debut novel about three Australian women from very different worlds: Maggie Heffernan, a spirited working-class country girl; Elizabeth Hamilton, whose own disappointment in love has served only to strengthen her humanity; and Vida Goldstein, a charismatic suffragist from Melbourne and the first woman to stand for Parliament in Australia.

When Maggie’s life descends into darkness after a terrible betrayal, the three women’s lives collide. Around this tragedy Wendy James has constructed a masterfully drawn and gripping fiction. Based on a true story, it unfolds at the dawn of the twentieth century against the compelling backdrop of the women’s suffrage movement and a world on the brink of enormous change.

The novel powerfully evokes the plight of women in the early 1900s – not least their limited options, whatever their class and education. However, at its heart this is a story of love – of love gone wrong; of its compromises and disappointments; but ultimately of its extraordinary transformative power.

ISBN: 9781740513838
ISBN-10: 1740513835
Audience: General
Format: Paperback
Language: English
Number Of Pages: 351
Published: 2005
Country of Publication: AU
Edition Number: 1