Bonaventure Arrow didn’t make a peep when he was born, and the doctor nearly took him for dead. But he was only listening, placing sound inside quiet and gaining his bearings. By the time he is five, he can hear flowers grow, a thousand shades of blue, and the miniature tempests that rage inside raindrops. He also hears the voice of his dead father, William Arrow, mysteriously murdered before Bonaventure was born by a man known only as the Wanderer.

One day, Bonaventure’s world is shaken by anguished voices he’s never heard before—voices that trace back to a note written by his mother, Dancy, and to a peculiar relic owned by his Grand-mère Letice—objects kept by each as a constant reminder of the guilt she believes she deserves. When Bonaventure removes the note and the relic from where they’ve been hidden, he opens two doors to the past and finds the key to a web of secrets that both hold his family together, and threaten to tear them apart. With the help of his kindred spirit, Trinidad Prefontaine, Bonaventure sets out to calm these secrets and to release his family from a painful legacy.   

Set against the background of 1950s New Orleans and the fictional town of Bayou Cymbaline, The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow is rich with the character of a culture that overflows with conjured charms and sanctified spirits. It takes readers from a gumbo joint on Atchafaylaya Road to a sinister house in New Orleans to the interior of the Arrow family crypt. A magical debut novel about the lost art of listening and a wondrous little boy who brings healing to the souls of all who love him in this story of forgiveness and redemption.