Silence

• Main Author: Newell, Christopher J.H.
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Memorial University of Newfoundland 2019
• Subjects: Newfoundland
• Online Access: https://research.library.mun.ca/13974/; https://research.library.mun.ca/13974/1/thesis.pdf

25-year-old Michael Healey has been sober for several years. He tries to stay away from drugs and alcohol, despite bouncing in a St. John’s nightclub. He struggles to stay afloat financially despite the lack of work, resorting to anything that pays. He’s living a life he thinks he’s supposed to live— in public, anyway. And still, it’s a precarious juggling act. One day, Michael stumbles onto an old family secret: back in 1949, his great-grandfather, Harlan Hynes, was arrested for killing his great-grandmother, Allison. What he discovers about the past sends him on a path towards either self-discovery or potential selfdestruction. An emotional, disturbing journey takes him from the clubs on George Street to the memories he left back home in Grand Falls-Windsor, as he seeks to understand the forces that shaped his life. In the process, Michael digs up other secrets he’s hidden even from himself. Now he just has to survive them. Here is a study of the ramifications of child sexual abuse, toxic masculinity, particularly as it touches down in outport Newfoundland, and ultimately how harrowing recovery might be.