After the Silence: a twisty page-turner of deadly secrets and an unsolved murder investigation

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As a wild party takes place at a big house on the remote Irish island of Inisrún, a violent storm cuts the inhabitants and partygoers off from the mainland. I thought I was reading a murder mystery thriller but it felt more like a noir version of Days of our Lives. After the Silence alternates chapters between Keelin’s perspective and transcripts of the interviews by the filmmakers.

After The Silence does what Louise does best: addictive and scalpel-sharp fiction that addresses important topics that should demand our attention, while feeling both deep discomfort and fire in our belly. How could a woman leave a marriage with nowhere to go and no financial independence - an impossibility. O'Neill has proven herself to be particularly adept at portraying victims of trauma, from sexual assault to domestic abuse, as we’ve seen in much of her work to date. You can’t forget the way it ostracized the Kinsellas, and how, against such opposition, they would necessarily feel the need for solidarity.This book is so beautifully written with a story that is totally engrossing and keeps you guessing until the end. Her daughter would pause ever so slightly, giving Henry the opportunity to interject, lavishing praise upon the girl for her sense of civic responsibility. I also really enjoyed how inherently Irish the book feels, through her use of Irish and chapters told from the perspective of the island and its people.

Louise O’Neill is the feminist powerhouse and outspoken voice for change whose novels Only Ever Yours and Asking for It helped to start important conversations about body image and consent. O’Neill appears to be prodding at our morbid fascination with true crime here - ‘salivating over the details, play-acting like a bunch of Nancy Drews, as if there’s not real people involved, real families torn-apart’, as one islander puts it. Their children have grown up and lived in the shadow of Nessa's murder, their daughter escaping to boarding school in Scotland at age 11 simply to escape the notoriety and be somewhere where no one knows her family or what happened. Our protagonist Keelin Kinsella has a troubled past, having fled an abusive husband with her young son Alan in tow.Either there was the constant use of the native tongue or Keelin drifting off into fairyland, as she so often did. She gets taken advantage of, not because she lacks agency, but because the messaging she received for the first two decades of her life have twisted that sense of agency. She forces us to confront not the darkest parts of relationships (particularly with men); rather she forces us to confront the greyest parts, the parts we seldom talk about because to admit they are present would be to admit our entire model of romance is broken. The mystery of Nessa’s fate builds well to a stormy crescendo, with a storm of hate coming the Kinsella way and their friendless isolation is clear. An islander by birth, she has ruffled feathers by marrying an outsider, Henry, younger son of the Kinsella hotel chain.