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A review by amelia555
After the Silence by Louise O'Neill
3.5
20.03.2024 update: I thought about this book some more, and now I realize I wasn't entirely correct. The emotional abuse thing is very much connected to the murder plot, and is not so simple. It doesn't make me like the book more, but I have to point it out. I do appreciate how none of the main chaarcters in this story is an entirely good person, they're all bad to different degrees. It's something interesting and challenging.
After The Silence is presented as a story about a mysterious murder of a Laura Palmer-esque girl on an Irish island. The main suspect is a wealthy British businessman of an Irish descent, Henry Kinsella, who lives on the island. He was accused but not proven guilty. This, however, didn’t stop the locals from hating him. His wife, a local woman, Keelin, is heavily side-eyed as well. We jump into the story a decade after the murder as two Australian documentary directors arrive to interview people on the island, the Kinsellas, and various other individuals for their project about the case. The story unfolds from Keelin’s POV, and she’s the main character we’re following.
After The Silence is presented as a story about a mysterious murder of a Laura Palmer-esque girl on an Irish island. The main suspect is a wealthy British businessman of an Irish descent, Henry Kinsella, who lives on the island. He was accused but not proven guilty. This, however, didn’t stop the locals from hating him. His wife, a local woman, Keelin, is heavily side-eyed as well. We jump into the story a decade after the murder as two Australian documentary directors arrive to interview people on the island, the Kinsellas, and various other individuals for their project about the case. The story unfolds from Keelin’s POV, and she’s the main character we’re following.
I’d say this story is not really about how a (quite typically for many similar books) young and beautiful girl found her demise. There are no detectives, the documentarians don’t uncover anything, and a relative fighting for justice doesn’t start their own investigation. We follow the story from Keelin’s POV, and we’ll see the day of the murder and the days around it in flashbacks. So yes, we’ll know the who and the why, but it’s sort of secondary. The main theme is the very unhealthy dynamic in the Kinsella family, and Keelin’s past and present experience with domestic abuse, both physical and mental.
I have to say, I commend Louise O’Neill for bringing up such an important topic. Many passages in the book were hard to read (and it’s still a relatively mild book that deals with the theme). The author explores how abusers inflict fear on their victims, how they use sex as a control tool. However, I have to say that, I think, the topic of the murder and the topic of the domestic abuse are not connected at the end. They are two parallel lines running through this book. And we’re talking about the thriller / murder mystery genre, I don’t think After The Silence is particularly interesting, especially if you’re an experienced reader. There are a very limited number of suspects, and there’s a red herring, and if you know your thrillers, you’ll figure it all out pretty early on. It’s like, well, if it’s not this person, than it’s that person, and such and such is their motive. You’ll think that, and you’ll be right at the end. Also to me the book felt a bit too long, and it’s particularly obvious if you figured out the culprit and the motive, but there’s still about 100 or so pages to go. The reading process became laborious. Another point for me is the title. Why After The Silence? When you finish reading, you’ll see that the silence stays, and most probably will stay forever, for the main character’s benefit. So I don’t know about that.
Not a bad book, but I wanted more.