Sherryl Jordan

Suspicious of sixteen-year-old Marnie, a newcomer to their village, the residents accuse her of witchcraft when she discovers that the village madman is not crazy but deaf.

The Raging Quiet

Suspicious of sixteen-year-old Marnie, a newcomer to their village, the residents accuse her of witchcraft when she discovers that the village madman is not crazy but deaf and she begins to communicate with him through hand gestures.

The raging quiet

Katherine Yang

This tale belongs to any time, even our own; it is about prejudice and it owner, and a young woman wrongly accused, who is guilty of only one thing—the unforgivable crime of being different.

Oh, moon-good beautiful. The abuse and pain of both Marnie and Raven are written so viscerally that, as headstrong and difficult as the characters may be, their innocence and vulnerability in society and circumstance so cruelly set against them make them people the reader yearns to see happy.

I love how Raven's deafness is portrayed here: he is seemingly impertinent and wild in not behaving 'normally', until it is discovered that the problem is not, in fact, in him, but rather in everyone else's ignorance of his inability to hear, and in his lack of a way to understand the hearing world in their abandonment of him. Thereafter, Marnie's patience and generosity in trying to give Raven a language he can see, and Raven's protectiveness of her and his boundless excitement, gradually develops into a quiet and fierce connection of souls.

The priest is also a beautifully-written character. Acting as an adopted father for what are essentially two orphans, he gives them food, and protection, and hope, and is also unexpectedly funny to boot. 

Some of what happens in The Raging Quiet are difficult to read and leave a bitter aftertaste (and it certainly doesn't wait long to get into it), but the rawness of the more horrific scenes is countered by the sweetness of the characters and the tender care they have for each other. 

Not stupid, he said. I know the word. Slowly, he put his hand over his face, his fingers slightly spread, so he could just look through. Not bad afraid, he said. Soft-afraid. Like a little bird when I hold out food to it. It wants to come, and it wants to fly away. Soft-afraid.

Overall, I hadn't expected to enjoy it so much, but this book was certainly a pleasant surprise. I'd recommend this to anyone who, like me, isn't usually fond of historical fiction!

The Raging Quiet

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