A History of Silence

Stone by stone the basilica was being dismantled in order to be put back together again. Each stone was painted with a number and laid with care onto pallets spread over the ground...I kept thinking about those numbered stones. Some purpose began to take shape. I began to wonder if I might re-trace and recover something of my own past, to reassemble it in the manner of the basilica. It was a matter of looking to see if any of the original building blocks remained, and where I might find them.
A History of Silence is a book about a country and a broken landscape. It's about the devastation in Christchurch, after the 2011 earthquake. It's about how easily we erase stories we find inconvenient. It's about the fault lines which that cataclysmic event opened up in Lloyd Jones' understanding of his own family history.
In A History of Silence Jones embarks on a quest for the truth about his family. What happened? Why do there seem to be so few stories? Why are there so few mementos? The answers he finds are completely unexpected and change everything.