THE SILENCE IN THE SOUND

In Braley’s debut novel, a nurse gets a transfer in an attempt to build a new life for herself.

Tired of the drudgery of working in a Boston hospital, 27-year-old Georgette transfers to a facility on wealthy Martha’s Vineyard. She was last there a decade earlier, when she visited the island for the weekend with her alcoholic father.As the population dwindles in the off-season, Georgette takes a full-time job taking care of Mr. S, a famous novelist in declining health with a bad temper. One of his symptoms is the inability to grasp things with his dominant hand: “Pens, papers, anything would slide out,” narrates Georgette. “He referred to it as a claw and told me once he felt this was a punishment of some sort.” The two form an unexpected friendship, and Mr. S’s attempts to come to terms with his approaching mortality force Georgette to confront some of her own unresolved traumas. She also meets the mysterious Dock, a good Samaritan who saves her from an aggressive, inebriated man at a bar; she finds herself drawn to Dock, even though she’s generally wary of trusting people. Can Georgette ever really find a place for herself on Martha’s Vineyard, where the line between islander and outsider seems uncrossable? Braley’s prose effectively captures the sound and texture of both the island and its people—sometimes in the same passage, as when Georgette describes Dock’s showing up at her door in the middle of the night: “I listened to the ocean waves breaking at the pillars under the club’s dock, and thunder shuddered off in the distance. He was soaked and looked thin and tired. The club lights came on, and he squinted, tucking his chin into his jacket.” Overall, the story builds slowly, mapping the patterns of Georgette’s life over more than one timeline and sketching intriguingly damaged characters. Although the work occasionally engages in melodrama, it is, for the most part, a compelling and psychologically satisfying tale of one woman’s complicated history.

An engaging story of love, grief, and remoteness on Martha’s Vineyard.