The Quality of Silence

This novel by British author Rosamund Lupton, translated into Chinese by Liu Yongjun, begins on November 24. Physicist Yasmin and her ten-year-old deaf daughter Ruby fly into Alaska to meet Yasmin's husband Matt, a wildlife photographer in the wilderness, but he fails to appear at the airport. After hours of waiting, mother and daughter set out into the frozen wild to find Ruby's father. There is almost no one here, and nothing grows; tears freeze the moment they fall; the long polar night will last more than fifty days; and the police have concluded that Matt died in a fire. Yet Yasmin clings to the belief that he is alive and waiting for them somewhere. The novel alternates between the mother's retrospective account and her daughter's interior monologue, tracing the pair's trek through the extreme cold and the support they give each other while the truth behind the disappearance gradually surfaces. What they do not know is that someone has been watching their every move from the darkness of the endless wilderness, and danger has been following them all along. Blending family bonds, suspense and survival adventure, the book also explores the conflict between environmental protection and resource development in Alaska, and between morality and greed.