Marketed as being written just weeks before the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic, The Silence is the most recent effort from the acclaimed American Author Don Delillo, which explores the digitally connected nature of today’s world. Given that it is a short work, the premise of The Silence is quite simple: A couple by the name of Jim and Tessa return home on a flight from Paris, and then go to meet their friends Max and Diane and Diane’s former student Martin for a Super Bowl Sunday party upon their arrival in New York. However, this eventful day is suddenly made more complicated when the world’s electronics suddenly stop working, leaving the five to each react in separate and distinct ways.

Don Delillo is an older author, with countless books and shorts stories to his name, and is known for his seemingly clairvoyant touch. In spite of this, my first impression of the Silence was that it seemed written by a guy like John Grisham who pumps out a book every year, at the expense of his own characters.                Oftentimes, Delillo’s writing is dry and clunky, and no real depth or detail is given to his characters. This alone leaves an interesting premise to falter.  The second chapter opens, “They sat waiting in front of the super screen TV. Diane Lucas and Max Stenner. The man had a history of big bets on sporting events and this was the final game of the football season, American football, two teams, eleven players each team…” (Pg. 19) This is the first time the reader is introduced to Max, and it honestly felt like a lazy attempt to provide you with sufficient background knowledge of his character.

        In some ways, it’s a shame that this book was written in the days before the Covid-19 pandemic, because there is no way of separating it from the world that is currently experiencing a pandemic. Although this book was marketed as being “pandemic” literature, it is really not. The book does make some fascinating points about the world today and its ties to cellphones, TV’s, and other forms of electronics, but the current state of the world and the publisher’s marketing strategy do not allow this to break through. One of the most sobering moments in the book comes towards its end, as Tessa reflects, “‘From the one blank screen in this apartment to the situation that surrounds us. What is happening? Who is doing this to us? Have our minds been digitally remastered?  Are we an experiment that happens to be falling apart, a scheme set in motion by forces outside our reckoning?’” (Pg. 88-89) Regardless of the pandemic, these moments of revelation are noteworthy and are deserving of their own moment, especially in a world run by social media.

        One of the most disappointing aspects of the Silence was that the entire book felt like a buildup to something that never came. The story has an uncanny nature to it, and keeps the reader’s attention by maintaining the idea that something interesting or important might happen, that will explain what is going on in this fictional world. Unfortunately, this moment is fleeting and the real movement in the story comes in the form of the different character’s reaction to the sudden electronic shutdown. These reactions can be touching at times, but they ultimately fall short due to the book’s suspenseful structure. In one sense, I do applaud DeLillo for not coming out and telling the reader anything; part of the premise’s strength is in that there is no real explanation. But, there is an underlying form of suspense in the novel that disappoints, as a distinct answer is never really provided, leaving the story feeling short and incomplete as a whole. 

        All in all, my biggest and most passionate reaction upon finishing The Silence was an “I can’t believe I spent $22 on that!” Simply put, referring to the Silence as a “novel” is a bit ridiculous. The entire story is merely 116 pages, though it feels shorter due to hardcover copy’s large and decorative type, and thus it should probably have been promoted as a novella or short story. This mischaracterization leaves the reader at the story’s end with the sense that it was a poor attempt by Scribner to make a quick profit off of the name of a famous writer by capitalizing on the novel’s loose ties to the world of 2020. This is a shame, because the core concept of the Silence has lots of potential, and it could have been a really great book if it had been afforded more time, thought, and effort. Instead, the reader is left at the book’s end with the overwhelming sense that the work is incomplete at best, providing a glimpse of the shell of a once great writer.