Now Silence: A Novel of World War II

by Tori Warner Shepard

In this superbly researched WWII novel, award-winning writer, Tori Warner Shepard, captures the mood of remote Santa Fe, New Mexico as it waits out WWII for the return of her men held in Japanese prison camps. POW Melo Garcia has survived the Bataan Death March in the Philippines but his brother and father have not. Along with 1,500 other American prisoners, he is diseased, tortured, starved, and used as slave labor in a condemned coal mine outside of Nagasaki, Japan. Melo is the last living hope to continue his family's centuries old line for his war-widowed mother, Nicasia, who prays for his return alongside his sweetheart, LaBelle. They have received no reliable news since the surrender to the enemy in 1942. The novel is as much a story of the men's heroism as it is of their Hispanic community which after Pearl Harbor was a distant and a safe refuge from the war, sought out by the US Government as an internment camp for 2,000 Japanese Isseii barely a mile from the office of the top-secret Manhattan Project that was developing the atomic bomb to be dropped 20 miles from Melo's prison camp. Add to the mix FBI and counter-intelligence agents, Gringo fanatics opposed to Roosevelt, Melo's novia LaBelle and Phyllis, the redheaded bombshell, who challenges her. And Melo himself with his mother who embodies gracia, a word that does not translate. This gripping exposition of the Japanese atrocities is even-handed and the characters and personalities on the home front will haunt your memory.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0865345961
• ISBN13: 9780865345966
• Release Date: October 2008
• Publisher: Sunstone Press
• Length: 316 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Now Silence is a fascinating read, hard to put down!

This book really gets into the hearts and minds of the people during WW II. I had no idea the South-Western Hispanics were chosen specifically for the Philippines, or what it was like for soldiers when Macarthur bailed to Australia. And the lives when they return home... very intense. And it is written so well, not like a dry history book. I definitely recommend it.

This is absolutely incredddddddddible!!!!!!!

"I loved this novel. The author's sense of history (WW II in the Pacific) and place (particularly Santa Fe) is stunning. The book portrays a fascinating mix of empathetic characters, especially the Hispanic ones such as Senio, Melo, LaBelle and Nicasia, with the more farcical Anglos like Anissa and Phyllis. Just as I've always been struck by D.H. Lawrence's believable portraits of female characters, so I'm impressed by the author's realistic sense of her male characters' inner life and dialogue. The structure of the novel, with its alternating chapters set in Florida, the Philippines and Santa Fe, economically telegraphs place and time to the reader. I won't give away the very moving ending. If you're looking for a compelling story that never flags, and/or are interested in WW II, the Philippines, Japanese and American history, Santa Fe--and a multicultural mix of characters--this book is for you. Do not buy it if you're not interested in sex, war, death, family and love." Kaaren Kitchell, Venice, Ca.

WWII from the home front

With a deep cast of characters spread across a canvas from Bataan to New Mexico, this well researched, multi-ethnic story digs into the tensions on the home front as families are torn by their own questions of survival while waiting to see if the world will survive. The author's insights are clear and strong, having been raised in post-war Japan and the Philippines.

Review of Now Silence by Tori Warner Shepard

A lively and poignant account of World War II and the lives it affected from Santa Fe, NM. Set in the 1940's, this historical novel focuses on some interesting and tragic aspects of the war not known to us before the Freedom of Information Act. Ms. Shepard's deft development of her characters gets you involved from the beginning to the end, and leaves you more curious than ever about the prime time of our "greatest generation," just when we thought we knew most all of it.