Title: Rented Silence
Author: Lucia Mann
Publisher: Grassroots Publishing Group
ISBN: 978-0-9794805-9-1
Pages: 360
Genre: Historical Fiction
Reviewed by: Barbara Bamberger Scott
Hollywood Book Reviews
The horrors of slavery are vividly laid bare in Rented Silence, a tale that spans more than fifty years of African and international history.The novel, by humanitarian and activist Lucia Mann, begins in South Africa in 1945, on a large, prosperous plantation. The owner, Lord Hallworthy, is an arrogant and utterly wicked “gentleman” who uses black indentured servants for his sadistic sexual pleasure. Nine-year-old Anele, who has fled her traditional Tswana village in a desperate search for paid work in a time of famine, soon finds that she, like so many others, will be Hallsworthy’s victim. She watches as he murders her sisters in cold blood. Then, weakened from beatings, she is forced to sign an agreement of indentured servitude (slavery in all but name), and becomes the perverted white man’s sex toy. She has little control over her life, but Anele remains inwardly strong and often prays for help. She attempts to save a young Italian girl who has been raped by Hallworthy, and succeeds in saving the life of the girl’s infant daughter, whom she names Shiya—“the forsaken one.” Shiya, with her light skin, is eventually taken away from Anele by force, to become the captive daughter of Hallworthy and his amoral spouse, who is unable to produce an heir. Hating and fearing her captors, she becomes mute, resolving never to speak to a white person.
This is a labyrinthine tale without geographical borders, as the international slave trade and the struggle to eliminate it have no borders. Renamed Lynette, the adult Shiya disguises her identity, escapes to London, travels to the Americas, and has a daughter of her own, Brianna. In the final portion of the book, Brianna, having become estranged from her mother, is searching for the mysterious and by now very wealthy Lynette, with only a few cassette tapes as clues to her whereabouts. Brianna’s frustration turns to desperation as she listens to the tapes and hears her mother pour out the anguished secrets of her tormented youth.
Retired freelancer Mann, who operates a website called Modern Day Slavery Reporting Center, has created an intricate tapestry that interweaves threads of past and present, of evil schemes and dark deeds contrasted with highlights of determination and self-sacrifice that reach across generations. Rented Silence is in part the author’s attempt to come to grips with her own upbringing in South Africa and elsewhere. The novel grapples with difficult truths conveyed in a complex story line that underscores, on nearly every page, one grim, inescapable fact: slavery has yet to disappear from the annals of human sin.
In Rented Silence, Lucia Mann succeeds in telling a gripping human story, while reminding us that the international slave trade still exists and should be combatted.