Lies of silence

1. What do you know about the author?

The book has been written by Brian More. He is an Irish writer who was born in Belfast on 25 August 1921. he was raised in a big Catholic family. He remembered his secondary school time as a nightmare. During the second World War he was in duty of the British Ministry for War transports and was active in Algeria, Italy and France.

In 1948 he moved to Canada and became a Canadian citizen. From the Fifties he started writing, for which he always separated himself from family and friends. In 1964 he married his second wife, Jean Denney, where he felt more comfortable than with his first wife. One year later they moved to California where he died in 1999.

His most sold novel was Lies of Silence (1990).

He always worried about the craziness and ‘deadly disease’ where North Ireland suffered from according to him. He wanted to stay on the background in his books.

1. Explain the title

The title lies of silence refers to the things the people concealed themselves. The story is full of lies!

-Michael doesn’t tell his wife about his other relation and that he wants to divorce.  

-The IRA conceals that they’re placing the bomb

to kill Pottinger. 

-Michael cant tell the police about the bomb (lie towards the police).

So those are all ‘lies of silence’.

1. What is the theme?

I personally think that the theme is about the ‘war’ between the IRA and the UK (North Ireland). Because the IRA fights for a free country and the they do so by kidnapping people or taking people for hostage. That clearly happens in the book because Michael Dillon get’s taken hostage. But it’s also about making choices, he has to make many choices in the story like when he is in the car with the bomb, when he is in the kiosk near the hotel, and of course about his wife (Moira) and girlfriend (Andrea). It’s a novel of character.

1. What is the genre?

The book is not very good I think. It’s boring, to long for such a small story and the kidnappers are very dumbass. But every book has a genre so this one must have one to. I’d call it a psychological thriller. Because Michael has a tough situation with his wife. And meanwhile it’s a thriller because there is this stuff with the bomb and the kidnapping!

1. What is the narrative technique?

The whole story is told by Michael Dillon himself. Of course there are some moments that we see it from a different view those are small pieces of the story.

1. What is the construction?

The story does not have a prologue or epilogue. The story does have chapters, but there are no time lapses and the whole story takes place in about one week. So it’s in chronological order. The book tells 10 chapters.

1. What is the setting?

The story takes place in Belfast, North Ireland and London, UK. Because of the IRA stuff I think it takes place in the years 80, while in that time there where many bomb attacks by the IRA. The story is very chronological but there are a few moments when Michael thinks back in time…

It definitely is a very good story for that period, as I already said a few lines up. There are some different social classes described in the book. Michael is in the middle class because he has a house with a drive. But the members of the IRA are not so rich, because if they would be rich, they wouldn’t kidnap people…

1. What do you know about the characters?

-Michael Dillon: the main character, he is a hotel manager at the ClarenceHotel.

(round character) 

-Moira Dillon: Michael’s wife. (round character) 

-Andrea Baxter: Michael’s girlfriend, she Works at

the BBC. (round character) 

-Pottinger: the guy who was supposed to die in the

bomb attack of the IRA. (flat character) 

-Head inspector Norton. (flat character) 

-Inspector Randall. (flat character) 

-Moira’s parents. (flat characters) 

-Kev and the other guys from the IRA. (flat characters) 

Michael definitely changes during the story, in the beginning he is a bit uncertain about his future but later on he gets more confident because he is now out of trouble (he thinks) and can live with Andrea.

Michael is the only character who really changes in the story, he was very afraid of the IRA and that infected his entire way of life.

Moira is a very strong woman, during the kidnap for example she say whatever she thinks and she also tries to escape, something Michael would never even dare to think of.

Andrea is very uncertain about her future with Michael, but she can handle it pretty well.

1. Is there any symbolism?

I haven’t found any symbolism in the book, but I must admit that I’m not very good at finding stuff like that in a book…

10. Give a summary of the story.

Michael Dillon is a guy who lives in Belfast with his wife Moira. But he also has a extramarital relation with Andrea, a girl who is much younger than him.

At the night he wants to tell his wife about her, he spots his cat laying dead on the driveway. When he is in bed with his wife, he wants to tell her the truth, but then het spots a light on the road. He takes a look and sees the same guys he saw when he was driving home. He didn’t trust the situation and wanted to call the cops, but before he was able to do so, he had a gun in his neck. They were kidnapped in their own house all night and at one moment Moira tried to escape trough the toilet window. During the night, one of the kidnappers took his mask off and Michael saw his face. That same dude was being called ‘Kev’.

The next morning Michael is told to drive his car to his work (the Clarence hotel in Belfast) and park it at his standard parkingplace. Then he had to go to a kiosk on the other side of the street and buy something there, he would be picked up by a green cab. If he would do anything different, his wife wouldn’t survive!

The kidnappers were from the Irish organisation IRA. They had placed a bomb in his car because they wanted a to kill a guy called Pottinger who was having a speech there. When he drove to the hotel, a car from the kidnappers followed him but left when he almost arrived at the hotel. Once he had parked his car and went to the kiosk he thought he had to call the police and tell them to evacuate the building. And so he did, he called the police and they told him to go to the hotel and make sure it’s getting evacuated fast! A few minutes after the last people had left the building, the bomb exploded. Luckily there were no casualties!

Michael rushed to Moira because he thought she would have been killed by the kidnappers. But when he arrived, he saw a lot of police cars and when he entered he saw Moira alive! They were told that it would be smart to leave the country but Moira didn’t want to hear a thing about that so she went to her mother. Michael was pretty happy with that because he now had more time to spend with Andrea. He even thought of moving to London with her because they both had a job there. Unfortunately Moira spots them at the hotel. Moira was looking for much attention from the media while Michael wanted to stay away from that.

At one night Michael is having a conversation with a (so called) priest. That guy want to know more about the things he knows but soon the conversation is about Kev. When Michael says he would like to testify to kev, the priest discourages that. Meanwhile, the cops had catched a boy and they wanted Michael to testify against him. After he had talked to the priest again, he had decided not to do it. But it was to late, he was al alone and couldn’t reach the police and was killed because the IRA didn’t trust him…

11. Reflection.

First of al I must tell u sir, that I hate reading. But I actually liked the book a little bit. I mean, the story wasn’t that bad. But there where many tiny thing that made the book very bad! Like the guy called Kev, he was a bit to stupid to be real so that made the book very unrealistic. And the writer: Brian Moore, was able to describe some situations so good, that it took about 3 pages and that’s way too long! It was really boring to read those things and that’s one of the reasons I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone.