‘I hope that The Silent Treatment will move you and stay with you and make you think of all the things that may go unsaid in your own relationships.’

Abbie Greaves was inspired to write her first novel, The Silent Treatment, after reading a newspaper article about a boy in Japan who had never seen his parents speak to one another before.

The Silent Treatment celebrates the power of love and the importance of leaving nothing unsaid. It is a life-affirming, deeply moving story about lies, loss and a love that is louder than words.

Read the author’s letter:

Dear reader,

Many of us have had some experience with the silent treatment – be it from a friend, a family member or a partner. It is unsettling enough to observe, even if you’re not the one on the receiving end of it.

So, when I read a newspaper article about a Japanese man who had not spoken to his wife for twenty years, I couldn’t get the concept out of my head. The couple’s eighteen-year-old son had never seen his parents speak and asked a TV crew to stage a reunion.

Reports suggested that their efforts were successful. Little, however, was made of the trauma that the silent treatment so often entails.

Although I knew that I wanted to write about silence eating away at a relationship, I also knew that I wanted to explore it in a very different situation. What if there was still the same kindness and affection, it was just words that had disappeared? It wasn’t long before Frank and Maggie were born – two characters whose undeniable love for one another over the course of forty years is threatened by an event that has stolen Frank’s voice for the past six months. It soon became apparent that what I was writing was a love story, one with a mystery at its heart.

I hope you will want to find out what happened to cause the silence and whether Frank will be able to open up again. I hope that The Silent Treatment will move you and stay with you and make you think of all the things that may go unsaid in your own relationships.

Most of all, I hope you will enjoy it.

Abbie x

Categories Fiction International

Tags Abbie Greaves Penguin Random House SA The Silent Treatment