TITLE: Feed Them Silence
AUTHOR: Lee Mandelo
112 pages, Tordotcom Publishing, ISBN 9781250824509 (hardcover; also, e-book and audio)
MY RATING: 4 stars out of 5
SHORT REVIEW: In Feed Them Silence, Lee Mandelo’s penchant for characters searching for answers to questions that get to the heart of who they are combines with their felicity with sensory details that immerse the reader in the character’s head and world to create a work of lush, sometimes gut-punching, beauty that questions where the line is between ethical and abusive research practices involving animals who can’t give consent and ruminates on human and animals’ shared need to belong. Feed Them Silence is a moving and effective look at the ways in which we seek connection and how our obsessions lead as much to heartbreak as to breakthroughs. At 112 pages, it’s a fast read but not a forgettable one.
LONGER REVIEW: Lee Mandelo’s new release, Feed Them Silence, is in concept and execution about as far as one can get from their previous book Summer Sons: novella vs. novel, science fiction rather than supernatural horror, cold labs and winter forests in place of hot Southern gothic buildings and summer cemeteries. What the works share is lead characters determined to find answers to questions that get to the heart of who they are, and Mandelo’s felicity with sensory details that immerse the reader in the character’s head and world.
Doctor Sean Kell-Luddon’s lifelong love of wolves has led to her current research project: using a surgically inserted neurological interface to transmit the thoughts and emotions of one of the world’s last free-roaming wild wolves to Sean’s own brain. (At the same time, her research team collects the raw data of the transmission for possible future use by the folks funding the research project.) Mandelo does a wonderful job contrasting Sean’s inner life when connected to her wolf Kate, especially the sense of belonging and emotional connection, with her outer life, which is clearly fraying even before the novella begins (especially her marriage, but her relationship to her team as well). Sean is searching not only for an understanding of, and a way to help, her nearly-extinct favorite species but also for a deeper connection psychologically to replace the one she’s losing in the physical world.
Scientists often speak of the dangers of anthropomorphizing – assigning human thoughts and characteristics to – animals (wild or domesticated) whose brains do not function the way ours do. Sean’s rational intention to avoid it falters the longer and more often she is directly connected to Kate via the interface. Transcribing what she gleans into human terms and being unable to separate her personal life from her project sets up the final conflict of the book beautifully.
If I have one complaint about the book, it’s that the narrow Sean-centric POV, which gives us such amazing insight into Sean’s intentions, history, and altering mental state, does not allow us to get to know some of the other characters as well as I would have liked, in particular Sean’s wife, Riya. Riya does play an important role in the story, she’s not just a prop to hang Sean’s faults on, so I would like to have seen some of the events of the book from her perspective. That’s the joy and the sting of novellas, though. I an avowed fan of the format, but the tight focus that makes novellas so enjoyable sometimes leaves us wanting the deeper insight a longer work might provide. That being said, the supporting cast of Feed Them Silence is all well-drawn and distinct. The world-building surrounding Sean, Riya, the team, and Kate is perfectly evoked: with just a few sentences, we know we are in a near-future where climate change has wreaked havoc on wild animal populations as resources dwindle. Also, a world where corporate interests are willing to fund cutting-edge research projects that academia is hesitant to touch – drawing attention to how hard it is to delineate that line where ethical research turns abusive and teasing questions of intent versus execution when it comes to the uses to which the research results are put.
Through it all, Mandelo fills the book with lush, sometimes gut-punching, sensory details, especially but not only when Sean is connected to Kate. I became completely immersed in descriptions of the cold winter forest, the aches and pains of being undernourished, the smells of fellow pack members, the taste of blood and raw meat as the pack takes down a rare bit of prey. I felt like I was truly there. There’s also a very affecting scene between Sean and her Riya that trades on the same level of sensory detail.
Feed Them Silence is a moving and effective look at the ways in which we seek connection and how our obsessions lead as much to heartbreak as to breakthroughs. At 112 pages, it’s a fast read but not a forgettable one.
I received an advance reading copy of this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. Feed Them Silence released on March 14, 2023.