Jones - A history of silence : a memoir

As compelling as a fairytalebeautiful, shocking and profound. HELEN GARNER

A brilliant narrative performance. Listener

Mister Pip is a rare, original and truly beautiful novel.

It reminds us that every act of reading and telling is a transformation, and that stories, even painful ones, may carry possibilities of redemption. An unforgettable novel, moving and deeply compelling. GAIL JONES

Poetic, heartbreaking, surprisingStorytelling, imagination, courage, beauty, memories and sudden violence are the main elements of this extraordinary book. ISABEL ALLENDE

It reads like the effortless soar and dip of a grand piece of music, thrilling singular voices, the darker, moving chorus, the blend of the light and shade, the thread of grief urgent in every beat and the occasional faint, lingering note of hope. Age

A small masterpieceLloyd Jones is one of the best writers in New Zealand today. With the beautiful spare, lyrical quality that characterises his writing, Jones makes us think about the power and the magic of storytelling, the possibilitiesand the dangersof escaping to the world within. Dominion Post

A little Gauguin, a bit of Lord Jim, the novels lyricism evokes great beauty and great pain. Kirkus Reviews

Rarely, though, can any novel have combined charm, horror and uplift in quite such superabundance. Independent

Lloyd Jones brings to life the transformative power of fictionThis is a beautiful book. It is tender, multi-layered and redemptive. Sunday Times

This is a writer who knows how to tell a story, deftly, surprisingly, magnificently. Weekend Herald NZ

A masterful, prismatic piece of storytelling. Independent

An extraordinary novelJones is a daring writer who can be relied on to ignore expectation, and is becoming one of the most interesting, honest and thought-provoking novelists working today. Guardian

Delicate and beguiling. It spirits the reader into a world that is both fascinating and perplexing. Its charms are hard to resist; its questions are hard to avoida book of great mind and heart. Age

Joness touch is deft yet bolda novel so fine, demanding and morally acute. Sydney Morning Herald

Jones slowly reveals the secrets of Iness story and its emotional momentum sweeps us up and makes us fellow travellers. Weekend Australian

A fine and moving story with enormous compassion, emotional depth and tender insight into humanitya superbly written meditation on how the disenfranchised accept the world as it is handed to them, on the weakness of men, on the deeply moving kindness of strangers, and on the power of maternal love. It is a beautiful book. Sunday Mail

We surely have sufficient evidence to trumpet Lloyd Jones as one of the most significant novelists writing today. Sunday Times

As complex and as beautifully crafted as a fine patchwork quilt. South Taranaki Star

Haunting to the very final line. Daily Telegraph

Lloyd Jones was born in New Zealand in 1955. His best-known works include Mister Pip, winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize and shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, The Book of Fame, winner of numerous literary awards, Here at the End of the World We Learn to Dance, Biografi, Choo Woo, Paint Your Wife, The Man in the Shed, and Hand Me Down World. He lives in Wellington.

TO THE
MEMORY OF
JOYCE LILLIAN JONES
AND
EDWARD LLEWELLYN JONES

spiritually a year of profound gloom and indulgence until that memorable nightwhen suddenly I saw the whole vision at last.

Samuel Beckett, Krapps Last Tape

Faults may appear to be haphazard, but they are never random. There is always a hidden control or reason for their presence

Hamish Campbell & Gerard Hutching, In Search of Ancient New Zealand

Im looking for the face I had Before the world was made.

William Butler Yeats, Before the World Was Made

One

Night-Time. The City is strung out like sea bloom. No lapping sounds. Just a volume of event that rocks inside me.

Put it down to the hourthat last hour when the dark feels painted on and the shapes of the city float in an underwater dream.

I like to sit by the window and watch the lights come on, as bits of life surface here and there. The shadow of someone appears at a window and then the lights switch off again as though a mistake has been made. The fan extractor perched on the roof of the Irish pub grinds away. In the joinery next door, old window frames and doors sit in a bath of acid. They take a while to strip back to their original grain. In another hour Gib will turn up to open his cafe for a clientele that includes me, and my neighbour, a software designer and chess fanatic, and others less fortunate, who, Gib tells me, are loaded up on methadone, Ritalin, or lithium, or just plain crazy. Soon car doors will bang shut and motors will be left running as harried young parents march their kids into the creche next to the cafe. In certain winds, tiny voices float up to the windows as though blown through a whistlehigh-pitched, squealing, so happy to be alive. Down on the corner, outside the music store, the tired old trickster, who has pulled her last van driver in for the night, sits on a bench waving the early traffic through on its way to the airport. I often think about taking her down a cup of tea, like a water-boy running onto the field during a break in play. Immediately below my window, four floors down, the beeping rubbish trucks reverse into the night dreams of those still asleep. Their sleep is delicately poised. A container holding several thousand beer bottles will soon be upended into the back of the rubbish truck, and the crescendo of falling glass will tear through the remaining layers of the night. This is how the neighbourhood emerges each daymodestly, a bit scruffily, in a mix of grace and buffoonery.