Follow the Silence

Jimmy "Boomer" Benjamin has arrived at the place he has dreaded and dreamed of for the past fifteen years: the town he grew up in. Nearing retirement and seeking closure to a novel that has plagued him for decades, Jimmy is determined to break the long-held silence that muted two murders. One was rumoured to have been committed by his father. The other was a part of his own nightmarish past-and resulted in his excommunication from his community.

Jimmy's journey begins and ends at Lighthouse Pier on the bleak and beautiful shores of Lake Erie, where memories, visions, shadows, love, and violence converge and break-for better or worse. Encouraged and directed by his novel, his opus of truth, his testament to fiction, Jimmy gives himself permission to come home.

Follow the Silence is a disturbing portrait of racism and homophobia in small-town Ontario, a stirring investigation into collective memory, and a deeply felt examination of one man's reckoning with his past. Timely, moving, and populated by a cast of unforgettable characters, Follow the Silence shows readers the remarkable power of truth.