THEY FLY SILENT

A young woman tries to find herself amid great psychological turmoil in this novel.

Pine Log, Texas, 1988. Cassandra Cleo Collard has been accused of starting a fire and publicly engaging in what appeared to be a bizarre magic ritual in the front yard of her ex-husband’s lover, but she has no memory of either. Cassandra is grappling with her failing mental health and this baffling loss of memory when a judge orders that she undergo mandatory psychiatric treatment. She starts therapy with Dr. Trish Telford. What happens next is the slow unraveling of the patient’s past as memories of her family, her troubling relationship with her mother, and the strange rituals her beloved great-grandmother Maw Sue shared with both Cassandra and her little sister, Meg, come to the fore as she tries to prove her innocence. As the months pass, Cassandra realizes that her fragile state of mind has deep roots in traumatic events in her childhood and that for her to be whole again, she must confront the parts of her that are broken and allow the flow of memories in. Some of these vivid memories encompass tales of her family, including the members of a community of women who speak a secret language and possess a mysterious power. Lanell’s ambitious psychological novel is less an exciting thriller and more a slow-moving, raw, in-depth portrayal of trauma, mental illness, and recovery with languid, eerily mystical tones. Along with its honest and clear depiction of the benefits of therapy, the story deftly examines the constraints of a small Texas town, the unhealthy expectations placed on girls and women, and a variety of generational traumas as its main character discovers a Christian spirituality that is more about faith than organized religion. But the meandering, overstuffed narrative also has a penchant for romanticizing a presumed link between mental health and creativity and genius.

A haunting, if rambling, family tale that connects history, faith, and mental health.