My Five Word TL:DR Review : My feelings are all over

I will say that Bridget Collins has a lovely way with words and can set a scene really well.  On top of that she’s a skilled author when it comes to blending historical settings and magical realism and her stories usually have a central mystery that hooks you and keeps you reading.

The Silence Factory is a period novel told over two timelines, one relayed in diary format by Sophie Ashmore Percy as she trails round the Greek islands with her husband in his relentless pursuit of mythical creatures and the other, set decades later, narrated by a widower called Henry Latimer, an audiologist who becomes wrapped up in the schemes of Sir Edward Ashmore Percy (the great, great? nephew of Sophie) and his relentless pursuit of money.

Sir Edward’s family made their money from lace but Edward has spent the wealth converting the family’s factory and setting up to spin silk instead.  Telverton silk is quite remarkable, it contains qualities that seem to nullify noise, however these remarkable traits must be weighed against the strange madness that its production seems to induce, the tremendous production costs and the overall ill effects that Telverton seems to suffer as a result.  Edward has over stretched and his situation is now dire, he needs backers.  This is where Henry enters the scheme.  Henry is employed by his father in law, working out of a shop in London.  The two make for a very melancholy scene.  One having lost his daughter, the other his wife.  There’s an unspeakable sadness until Sir Andrew appears in the shop.  Sir Andrew’s daughter is deaf but he believes she can be cured.  This is when Henry meets Sir Andrew and seems to become almost instantly beguiled – simply by a kind gesture.  To cut a long story short Henry soon finds himself travelling to Telverton to stay at Sir Edward’s mansion and to try and help his daughter.  After a rather unexpected outburst by Henry one evening in front of a prospective backer Sir Edward begins to see potential in the young man helping him to market his silk and so begins their strange relationship.

On the face of it this book has everything I love and then some.  And, I confess, I was keen to keep reading, intrigued by the mystery.  There is the gothic goodness, the whole setting of Telverton in fact plays into this with it’s oppressive feel.  There’s the dual timeline and the diary chapters.  In fact I loved the chapters where we jumped to Greece.  It has such a different feel.  This tiny, sun soaked village with its traditions and sparkling waters.  Another setting easily brought to life by Collins.

What worked for me.  The writing.  So eloquent.  This is an author that can set a scene that will burst to life in your mind as you read.

The mystery.  Although it feels a little that we don’t fully explore the full potential of this particular intrigue it did keep me reading.

There’s an exploration here of the social issues of the time.  The conditions that people worked in.  The dangers of the factories.  The fact that children were scurrying about cleaning the underneath of dangerous equipment.  The blatant disparity and dispassion between the haves and the have nots.  Also the treatment of women and the clear depiction that whether wealthy or not, most women had few choices and little voice.

Unfortunately, most of the characters didn’t work for me at all.  I’m not going to turn this into a character assasination but Henry, his actions just defied belief.  I do understand that he was grieving and lonely, but I just couldn’t come to terms with him at all in fact I totally ran out of patience.  Edward, well you could understand his motives, greed and power, and he was just your basic arrogant, self-serving, over-priveledged, selfish horror.  Although, now I’m talking myself into a corner because as I write this review I can see that the author has written here three men who badly let their wives down and so clearly they’re not supposed to be likable – but, it’s a gamble isn’t it because whilst I love a good baddie, I do find it difficult to read an entire story without having any characters to root for.  Okay, Sophie isn’t a bad character, but at the same time her involvement is a little sparse, I would have loved more of her chapters.  The governess of Sir Edward’s daughter was an interesting character but her own reticence made it difficult to latch onto her.  (Although I loved the addition of the cousin who looked so much like her – that had a WIlkie Collins vibe for me).

Overall, this is an intriguing story.  I loved the period setting and the writing is beautiful.  I felt the storyline of the spiders and the silk was a little under explored.  I enjoyed the highlight on the social aspects and particularly the plight of the females in this story and the unflinching way that the author doesn’t try to change this in some way – yes, she could have given these women more agency, they could have acted more assertively – and yet, in actual fact, no they couldn’t, they were all of them, always conscious of the lack of choices that they really had.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks.  The above is my own opinion.

My rating 3.5 of 5 stars