Silence Once Begun

‘Strange, brief, beguiling… Ball’s talents, both as a storyteller and a writer of prose, tend to burst the borders of his structures. His language is chastely lyrical, with a discreet musicality… He is often appealingly funny, in an absurdist manner.’ – James Wood * New Yorker *
’“Jesse Ball” investigates a series of disappearances, a wrongfulconviction and a love story in modern-day Osaka, Japan. [He] makesreaders’ heads spin yet again with a darker but more tempered version ofhis strange, almost whimsical multimedia creations … There’s nodenying the fascination his aberrant storytelling inspires.’ * Kirkus Reviews *
‘Beginning as a work of seeming reportage, Silence Once Begun transforms into a graceful and multifaceted fable on the nature of truth and identity.’ * Wall Street Journal *
‘Ball’s spare, meditative, Rashomon-like novel, a work of exceptionalcontrol and exquisite nuance, consists of contradictory transcripts,poetic letters, a striking fable, and melancholy musings. Enigmaticblack-and-white photographs add to the subtly cinematic mode. Withechoes of Franz Kafka, Paul Auster, and Kobo Abe, Ball creates anelegantly chilling and provocatively metaphysical tale.’ * Booklist *
‘A piercing tragedy in a language that combines subtlety and simplicity in such a way that it causes a reader to go carefully, not wanting to miss a word.’ * New York Times *
‘A wondrous and provocatively strange reading experience that places the actual Jesse Ball among our most compelling and daring writers today.’ * LA Review of Books *
‘A heartbreaking tale of bewilderingly unnecessary tragedy. Psychologically astute and precisely, lucidly written, the book can be read quickly but tempts the reader to slow down, the better to enjoy the subtleties and beauties held within deceptively simple sentences.’ * Huffington Post *
‘Immediately and completely absorbing, sucking you in and—a too brief couple of hours later—spitting you right back out again.’ * Adelaide Advertiser *
‘Silence Once Begun is a suspenseful, philosophical novel masquerading as reportage. Its preoccupations are complex, but it’s written with great clarity…The resonances between the narratives—the recourse to silence, inexplicable disappearances, the ineffable qualities of love and loss—are treated with delicacy and restraint.’ * Weekend Australian *
‘Jesse Ball is a novel-writing maverick…Silence Once Begun, Ball’s fourth novel, is a fitting addition to an idiosyncratic body of work…Here he bridges the dichotomy [of the personal and the political] with searing force…Ball indulges our natural curiosity about what’s real and simultaneously repudiates the idea that it matters. This is a writer too interested in the transformative power of language to come down on one banal side or the other.’ * Age/SMH/Canberra Times *
‘A unique book with an experimental style. Ball is skilful in his ability to meld a complex plot with cross-cultural differences and a peculiar interview/transcript presentation…Haunting and discomforting.’ * Salty Popcorn *

Jesse Ball is the author of three previous novels including Samedi the Deafness. His prizes include the 2008 Paris Review Plimpton Prize; his verse has been included in the Best American Poetry series. He gives classes on lucid dreaming and lying in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s MFA Writing program.

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