I never read from Lee Mandelo before and I really did enjoy this short sci-fi. The premise was simple to understand, the characters were the perfect amount of morally grey! Overall the short length was perfect for the story to feel told in its entirety.

HIGHLIGHTS
~complete failure to Spouse (that’s a verb now)
~time to mind-link with a wolf
~have you considered, Not Doing That
~an unexpected bear
~NO ONE CARES WHAT THE NEIGHBOURS THINK, SEAN

Just in case you missed or misunderstood the description, Feed Them Silence is not another Summer Sons. Fans of the one are not at all guaranteed to be fans of the other; they are two very different books!

Although in my opinion, Feed Them Silence is just as excellent as Mandelo’s debut. Just very, very different!

Here’s the situation: glory-hound scientist Sean is about to embark on a pretty groundbreaking project; a one-way empathic bond with Kate, one of the last living wolves, facilitated by neural implants and a machine that connects one to the other in real-time. But her marriage has grown strained under the pressure of Sean’s hunt for funding, and her neglect of her wife becomes even worse once the project gets underway. It all comes to a breaking point, and honestly, it looks like Sean herself is the one who’s going to break.

This is a fascinating, addictive novella that I kind of adored, even though it’s nothing like my usual reads. Sean is an unambiguously terrible person – not in the ‘lock her up and throw away the key’ sense, but if her (amazing) wife wrote an AITA post, everyone would definitely be telling her to file for divorce, because Sean definitely doesn’t deserve her. And although Sean insists the point of her research is conservation, Rita does an excellent job tearing that argument to shreds – leaving only Sean’s hunger for fame and personal interest (not-quite-obsession) with wolves as her real motivation.

“If the fact that we’re destroying every habitat on this godforsaken planet hasn’t stuck with the corporations whose money you’re begging for by now, then you doing some brain-in-a-jar bullshit to say how a wolf feels about dying won’t matter either. This wolf can’t consent to being studied by you, which involves a nonconsensual surgical procedure. The presumption you’re making in claiming to report on its real feelings, so you can make a name for yourself, violates its sovereign dignity. It can’t correct you when you put words in its mouth. So, yes, as an ethnographer I fucking disagree with this entire premise.”

Which is probably the motivation of quite a lot of real-life scientists too, but that doesn’t make it feel any less slimy.

Maybe that – finding it slimy – is kind of unfair – what’s wrong with wanting to be famous, really, and would we judge so harshly if Sean were a man? I’m not sure. I do think that Sean’s general indifference to other people would be equally awful in a man – and in fact, as Rita points out, Sean’s overall problem is that she’s behaving like a very particular kind of White Dude. Is that a side-effect of trying to make a name for herself in a field dominated by men? Did she become like this because she was trying to be like them? I don’t know, and I don’t know if it ultimately matters- especially when it’s extremely clear that she has no real interest in putting the work in to be (and do) better.

Wasn’t it enough at their stage of life to be decently matched in their careers and able to function within one another’s orbits?

No, Sean. Wtf? Of course it isn’t. What is wrong with you?

Feed Them Silence would be terribly dull if this were just literary fiction about a failing marriage, but it’s not, and Sean’s relationship with Rita is far less interesting than her relationship with Kate. Not, though, because Kate is more interesting than Rita – it’s not about comparing wife to wolf (even if that’s definitely what Sean does), but about comparing Sean’s ability to connect with wife vs ability to connect with wolf. And let’s be super clear about this: it takes experimental surgery and full on science-fiction levels of technology to make Sean capable of empathising with Kate! This is not a case of someone who has an easier time with non-human animals than with humans; this is a case of someone who needs semi-magical mind-fuckery to care about anyone.

And once she does, she absolutely cannot handle it. Easily the most interesting part of Feed Them Silence is the way in which Sean loses herself in Kate; something which starts slowly, but almost immediately becomes an addiction for her. And having spent time in Sean’s head, it’s not hard to see why; Sean is so dead inside that experiencing the full, unfiltered emotion of Kate’s life – even in the tiny sips mandated by the machinery instead of the devouring gulps Sean would much prefer to be taking – is like moving from black-and-white silent movies to orchestral technicolour. Mandelo depicts this beautifully, not just via the story but in the actual writing itself; bit by bit, Sean goes from referring to Kate as ‘the wolf’, to ‘her wolf’, to ‘them’ (meaning Kate + Sean), to ‘herself’ (meaning Sean). It’s a neatly subtle, but powerful, way of underscoring Sean’s freefall into Kate.

The first bite of chicken-flesh and grease filled her mouth while she saw herself, or her wolf, on video: brindled coat, shaved scalp now furry again, huge ears and paws. An unexpected dislocation, far worse that hearing her own voice speaking back to her on her phone’s answering message, smacked her across the face.

(Is it good or bad that Sean comes to care more for Kate and her pack than other humans? Is it terrible that she requires such drastic measures to be able to empathise at all? Should we be horrified? Is this a horror story? WHY IS SEAN LIKE THIS?)

Ultimately, this is a weird but brilliant book that manages to be about (semi-)psychic bonds with wolves, toxic academia (is there any other kind?), gender roles in same-sex marriages, and a critique of ‘feel-good’ scientific research. There’s more than a touch of climate fiction in there too, and all of it wrapped up in prose that is sharp and deft, where each word feels powerful because each word is exactly what it should be. Another author would need 300-odd pages to tell this story; Mandelo fits it into a novella because their use of language is so precise it makes every sentence throat-grabbingly potent. Feed Them Silence is distilled down to its purest form, pure concentrate, and it’s enough to make you deliriously dizzy.

I loved it, but I do hesitate to recommend it – it’s fairly bleak, and although the ending is clearly meant to be hopeful, I wouldn’t call it happy.

This is not a book meant to comfort, but it is most certainly a book to make you think, and if you’d like a quick, gut-punch of a story that dissects a very messed-up woman’s addiction to wolf-thoughts, then this is definitely for you.

I unfortunately did not have a chance to finish this title before it was published despite having an interest in it. Rated 5stars, did not finish.

Lee Mandelo’s Feed Them Silence blends the methodology of real world science, the foreboding dread of horror, and a complex queer relationship to create an engrossing near future sci-fi novella. Short enough to be read in a single sitting yet layered enough to inspire thought and discussion for days afterward, I would recommend Feed Them Silence to anyone looking for a story that raises and answers a plethora of ethical questions through its character work—even if neither are easy or straightforward.

Thank you to Tordotcom and NetGalley for an advance review copy. All opinions are my own.

Book Summary:

Dr. Sean Kell-Luddon is one of the most determined scientists you'll meet. She's fascinated by animals and their perception. As such, she's found a way to combine neurological interfaces with these animals, understanding them directly.

This discovery has opened the door to a secret desire of Dr. Kell-Luddon. She wants to see, feel, and smell through a wolf. She wants to know what it is like to be a wolf running through the woods.

Unfortunately, this obsession with the minds of others does come at a cost. Primarily, it pulls her further from the humans around her – especially her wife. Which would you choose if given a chance?

My Review:

Okay, so I was a bit hesitant to dive into this one; I'm not going to lie. You never know how a horror story involving animals will go, so I tend to lean on the side of caution. That said, I'm glad I overcame my fear and read Feed Them Silence.

In a sense, most of us can sympathize with Dr. Sean's goals, at least at first. As with the story of Captain Ahab, there is such a thing as going too far. Of chasing our dreams until they turn into obsessions.

Naturally, most people miss the moment when this happens. Only viewing it from the outside makes it possible. In Sean's case, I felt chills running down my spine as I watched her chase after her wolfish dream.

This was an excellent read, despite all my hesitations if you're like me and are debating about reading Feed Them Silence, stop hesitating!

Highlights:
Science Fiction
Horror Novella
LGBT+

Trigger Warnings:
Animals

Rating: Absolutely Loved It, 5 stars

This is a rather weird near-future sort of sci-fi/cli-fi-y horror novella. And I loved it. I just finished it and it has left me feeling deeply unsettled.

I feel like I resonate deeply with the project that is highlighted in this novella. Sean is a researcher who has wondered her whole life what it is like to be part of a wolf pack, and she has finally gained the opportunity to find out. There is a neural link that allows her into the mind and feelings of a wolf three times a day, leading her to deeply empathize with her wolf and look forward to that time.

However, there are a lot of ethical implications of this that are explored in the flashbacks with her wife's objections to the project in the grant stage to some of the reflections at the end of the novella. I think that this is going to be something that sits with me for a good long while.

In this we watch Sean throw herself into her work in search of the close and intimate bond of the pack, all the while neglecting the intimate bond she has with her partner. We see the fallout in her relationship of not being willing to put in the work to maintain it, alongside the impacts of the project, both in Sean's brain and emotions as well as on the wolf pack she studies.

I don't want to say much more for fear of spoilers, but this was a very impactful, well-written novella that I devoured in a few hours. I think I would recommend this to others who may have wondered at the possibility of sharing minds with an animal. I feel like it has made me examine myself a bit closer.

Thank you to Netgalley and Tordotcom for an early review copy in exchange for an honest review (even if life events kept me from finishing prior to publication date).

A corporate funded science project that involves a neural interface connection between a human and a wolf. The project is supposedly about conservation, but the head scientist has always wanted to know what it was like to be a wolf and the corporate backers are just interested in the commercial potential.
This was an interesting short novel that held my attention even though the main character is mostly unlikeable. When she’s inside the mind of her wolf, it is impossible for her to maintain any objectivity. Very readable.

I loved this uncomfortable tale of a marriage dissolving. The characters are flawed in relatable ways. The ethics and relationships shape the story. A tense, introspective read!

Grateful for the galley copy of this Mandelo short. Having read Summer Sons and really enjoyed it, I was curious about the follow-up potential. Esp in a pretty different premise and approach. Feed them Silence had a great concept at its core and intertwined the right amount of personal hurdles and events along the way. The central character was really solid and kept me turning pages to see where and how she'd go next. Good interplay between a scientific concept and the humanity and emotional tugs that life and events bring.
Worked as a short story. Nice seeing Lee Mandelo having range while maintaining some core of his voice.

Feed Them Silence is a beautifully written, fascinating novella, that I wound up deciding not to finish because it was making me too darn sad. The ethical debate about research on animals, and the deterioration of the protagonist's marriage were both well handled as well, but for me the wolf content was just hitting too close to my heart right now. I might try this one again in the future.

thank you to tor for providing me with a proof copy!

for most of this book i had no idea where it was going. i thought maybe it was going to get gory with sean and the wolves, or there would be some kind of wolf involvement in sean’s life, but erm, no. it just didn’t really go anywhere. there wasn’t a satisfactory ending (which isn’t necessary) but there wasn’t any ambiguity either. it feels like it just stopped at an arbitrary point and that’s all.

i think riya was my favourite character because she seemed like she had her head on straight, while sean was thinking/acting like she was jesus. the inclusion of a lesbian married couple as the main protagonist and her family was very cool, as was the fact that the women were both older (i believe in their fifties?) and that i believe one or two side characters were nonbinary. i had hoped for discussion about trans and queer people in stem, and the barriers they face, but i only found one line that referred to this. about halfway through the book, riya experiences something traumatic, and i have to be honest and say i didn’t see the point. it seemed like the author just wanted to include a thought on the refugee crisis so threw in a tiny detail about a character we don’t meet nor has any bearing on the wider story. in the end, that plot point doesn’t have any affect on anything else in the book so it came across as rather cheap to me.

i thought the first 50ish pages could’ve done with a bit of an edit, and having the Slow pace at the start move to a Slow-Medium pace then a Medium Slow pace and then back to Slow made the book drag rather than carry itself along on its momentum.


trigger warning - animal death
(view spoiler)
i wasn’t quite prepared for the animal harm in this book, so please be prepared for content such as animal death, surgery, animal pain, experimentation on animals, etc. i do wonder if that was supposed to be the horror element on the book, but it wasn’t horrifying in that it was creepy or eerie or scary, it was just sad and uncomfy (but not in the fun horror way).

i think this book had a tonne of potential to go in very slasher vibe ways to poke fun at the genre, or contemplative horror discussing capitalism and the price of progress, or about climate change and the monstrosity of the world as it is. unfortunately this just felt one note to me all the way through. the one thing i really loved about this novella however was the writing and the prose. some sentences were so beautiful i had to put the book down to ponder them for a moment. i loved the language and the descriptions, it did feel like we as the reader were aware of every sound, smell, thought, experience that sean had at times and that made for a very immersive experience. overall that wasn’t enough to carry the book for me though. i haven’t yet read another book similar to this, but it did remind me of the synopsis of the book night bitch, where the protagonist believes she’s turning into a dog. as i haven’t read it i can’t comment on that book further, but those who enjoyed that novel may find more to love in this novella than i did. i think this concept and the various other ideas presented in the book would’ve been better served in a full length novel. a novella format of only 112 pages felt like barely scratching the surface. i think short horror has to be sharp and to the point, or hazy and trusting of the reader, and it felt like this novella flopped between the two at different points, which made the tone very different which pulled me out of the story.

overall i'm a bit sad about this one, but it's only confirmed my desire to read lee mandelo's previous work, and to keep an eye on their career going forward.

thank you to tor for providing me with a proof copy!

A unique premise and well done about a woman using a technical interface to put herself in the mind of a wolf. It starts as a scientific experiment and takes over her life to the detriment of her marriage and other relationships. It's interesting speculation about the emotions of a wolf during pack time of cleaning, playing, sleeping, and hunting.

The secondary storyline is about the disintegration of her marriage to her wife and how the wolf relationship becomes more important than saving her marriage. Some brief f/f sex doesn't distract. A short, quick read that pulled me into the life of this woman and "her" wolf.

Thanks to #netgalley and #macmillan for the advance copy; opinions are my own.

A character study about the hubris of believing you can cheat hubris.

I'm afraid the fashionable trend of referring to people as "bodies" is incorrigible by now. What began as a specific usage in Academese with a specific meaning has finally completed its migration into literary language, where it stands out from the text like a record scratch in a soundtrack. If you can summon the patience to put up with dozens of instances of this lexical affectation, you'll have a pleasant time reading Lee Mandelo's otherwise fascinating novella Feed Them Silence.

Set in a near future beset by ongoing environmental collapse, Feed Them Silence tells the story of Sean, a neuroscience researcher in a failing marriage, and a wolf called Kate, a member of the last surviving pack in the wild and Sean's object of study. As part of a last-resort attempt to make people actually care for endangered species, Sean et al. have developed a neural implant that transmits the sum of Kate's wolfy sensations and emotions into Sean's head. The hope of this ethical minefield of a study is that, by making an animal's inner experience publicly known, enough empathy will be sparked to mobilize stronger support for conservation programs. However, before Sean's investigation yields any publishable findings, it becomes clear that downloading a wolf's consciousness onto a human brain should come with a lengthy warning label. What this mental connection does to Sean and how her human connections change as a result of Kate's influence is the main focus of the story.

One recurring preoccupation in Feed Them Silence is the question of who is invading whom. From the inside of her fancy telepathic machine, Sean believes she's bored a peephole into the wolf's mind, but the process could be just as accurately described as the wolf's experiences supplanting Sean's. If you're going to pretend that scientific observation can be passive, you're going to have to deal with what "passive" entails: to know something is to let it change you. Is Sean still Sean while the content of her subjectivity is being replaced with that of another mind?

That question can be rephrased as: can Sean truly know what it's like to be a wolf? But then we'd be joining a discussion that started half a century ago and remains unresolved. Fortunately for the reader, Feed Them Silence isn't so much a story about the metaphysics of consciousness as one about the ethics of interaction. Sean et al. are well aware that Kate didn't, and couldn't, articulate an informed opinion about the prospect of having a chip put in her brain for someone to spy on her thoughts. This whole mission to engender empathy relies on an act of aggression. In trying to foster cooperation between humans and animals, Sean has had to commit the deepest breach of trust.

The book acknowledges this paradox with open eyes, as do researchers in the real world. Our natural communication barrier renders lab animals more vulnerable than human volunteers, and yet it is that same communication barrier which makes a laxer ethical standard necessary for animal experimentation to be doable at all. A mouse can't tell you whether it wants its belly cut open, but precisely because you can't ask it about its dinner, you have to cut its belly open.

In the case of Kate the wolf, the paradox is compounded by layers of dramatic irony. The neural implant was put in her without asking how she felt about it, but the direct communication that the implant provides makes it now possible to know exactly how she feels about it. But even with that level of access to Kate's mind, what good does it do? It's still mediated by a radio signal, and processed by Sean's human brain; and the people Sean wishes to convince of Kate's inherent worth will only know her wolfy feelings as expressed in human words. The book refers multiple times to the preverbal, intuitive, visceral quality of the data received by Sean's brain, but the reader can only learn about it from the words in the book. Feed Them Silence thus becomes an illustration of the paradox attributed to the sophist Gorgias: things can't be known, and even if they are somehow known, they can't be communicated—the paradox being that such a statement is itself the communication of something known. Literature is the art of going inside someone's head; to write a story about the impossibility of truly going inside someone's head is the ultimate form of dramatic irony.

So let's talk about a singing cat for a moment.

At the end of The Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, Mowgli the man-cub feels a sudden urge to abandon his wolf pack and return to human society. As a farewell ceremony, his animal friends sing a song of well-wishing. The panther's part includes these verses:

Feed them silence when they seek
help of thine to hurt the weak.

The reference to this line in the title of the novella does quite a bit of heavy lifting. As a human who can understand the speech of wolves, Mowgli is the ideal of empathy that Sean aspires to. And the panther can be read as Mowgli's mirror image: an animal who can understand humans. The farewell song is made of moral maxims intended to keep Mowgli in good terms with the natural world even after he's reintegrated into civilization. In this context, "to hurt the weak" alludes to the imbalance of power between humans and animals, and the request to "feed them silence" means to deny humans the use of the fruits of that imbalance of power.

In other words, Sean's method of research, conceived as a means to oppose the domination of nature, can easily become another form of domination. The findings of her study could be packaged and monetized as an entertainment gadget instead of a tool of political action. Empathy, the altruistic sharing of pain, can be twisted into a selfish extraction of pleasure. And here's where the novella reaches thematic completion: the point where the political meets the erotic.

Intersubjective attunement taken to the point of feeling exactly what the other is feeling is the Holy Grail of eroticism. Sean's link to Kate isn't blatantly described in those terms, but it's impossible to miss the intense desire that such intimate connection produces in Sean. In one scene, Sean's therapist directly compares her marital difficulties with the undemanding presence of an always available object of desire who can't refuse, can't reject, can't withhold, can't leave. But even through her deliberately unidirectional channel of communication, the power that Sean exerts over the wolf is complicated by the power that the wolf begins to exert over Sean. Just like with knowing, to desire something is to let it change you.

In a short wordcount, Feed Them Silence explores convoluted questions of epistemic justice and proposes a scenario where the standard intuitions fail to offer full solutions. Your mind may not know whose mind you're visiting while reading it, but one sure thing is that your mind will have been changed by the experience.


Nerd Coefficient: 7/10.

I read Feed Them Silence in one breathless sitting! It may be a novella, but this small book packs a big punch and will be one I'm thinking about for a long time.

Imagine it's 2030 and grey wolves are nearly extinct. Sean just got a grant for a groundbreaking scientific experiment where she will connect via neural link to Kate, a wild wolf. Brain mesh implants in Sean & Kate will allow Sean to smell just what the wolf smells and make connections to how she interacts in her environment. Sean's hoping the results of this study will help the wolves and get more money to conserve the forests.
Sean's wife disagrees with the entire project and their relationship starts to fray and fracture.

Being brain-linked to a wolf isn't going exactly how Sean expected. She's feeling more connected to Kate and her pack than her wife and team and soon she's behaving erratically and her team starts to wonder if her brain chemistry is being altered...

🐺🔬

Feed Them Silence is beautifully written, but absolutely devasting! As an animal lover I found it very difficult to read at parts and even though I knew it couldn't end well I could not stop myself from turning pages!

My only real complaint is that I wish it was longer and there was more background into the science and Sean's marriage.

I'd recommend this one if you're looking for some quiet horror that will wreck you!

TW: animal testing, cheating

1.5 stars

I was going into this thinking it was going to be a super weird sci-fi horror but instead I’m just left confused. I feel like this is in the sub-genre of quiet horror. It’s what isn’t said that makes it scary but that’s not what I expected or what I wanted from this.

In this book, Sean is going into the the subconscious of a wolf in a local pack as part of her grant experiment and as a result, her connection to the wolf is destroying her marriage to her wife. This story instead seems like it’s telling about the slow process of their marriage falling apart.

I really wanted more from this. I feel like I need to read something else from this author because I enjoyed the writing, I just feel like this wasn’t for me.

I read Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo as soon as I could get a copy of it. I knew that I was going to like it and I did. What I liked most was Mandelo's writing style. "Feed Them Silence" is the new novella by Mandelo and while I loved the writing style I can't say that I enjoyed the story.

Let me break this down a bit. I had an interesting discussion with a colleague about the premise of being in side the mind of another species or even an alien life form. How can we ever do that? We can only explore the life of another being filtered through the bias of already being a human being. This book took me back to my university days when I was taking Philosophy. My old pal, Nagel and his "What it's like to be a bat" essay. The issue is that you can't understand the experience of "being" another creature unless you can become that creature absolutely.

Mandelo started off strong in this novella. I was intrigued by the potential science behind a neural link that would allow an animal and a human to sync in a way that would provide feedback. I found that I wanted more of the background and the futuristic explanation of the science. That is, however, my fault. I often read books without first seeing what genre they are.

Working within the confines of a novella, Mandelo quickly shifts to the horror side of the story. Here is the point at which my problems began. The main character Sean is a research scientist on the edge of a great discovery but their personal life is a bit of a wreck. From moment one, Sean is an unlikeable character. Solely focused on work, Sean's marriage is in tatters and she's really not even pleasant to her wife. I found the relationship moments to be quite bleak. What saved it for me is the style of Mandelo's writing. I'm not sure I can put my finger on it, but I adore Mandelo's use of words. The language is rich and syrupy and gives me something to savour. I remember thinking exactly the same thing when I was reading "Summer Sons".

As the marriage frays, Sean sinks herself completely into her research. She becomes abnormally attached to the wolf she is connected to. Perhaps she was looking for some sort of connection in her life, perhaps Mandelo had another meaning in mind and I missed it. I struggled a bit with the instant connection that Sean had to the wolf...and also the ethics of subjecting a wolf to an invasive surgery for research. SPOILER: and later... Sean was outraged when killing the wolf was put on the table which was hypocritical.

This is definitely a horror... but I think I was expecting more of he horror to come from the actual connection to the wolf than the fact that most of the human beings were absolutely horrendous people that I probably wouldn't want to know!

The writing is stellar...just not the book for me, I think. I would have loved a book that was about the science behind the connection between human and animal and I would have also loved a book about the train-wreck relationship... I think though, both these stories were left a bit unfinished for me.

<i>Summer Sons</i> is one of my favourite books, so I was amped for something new from Lee Mandelo. This read was interesting but not something that super engaged me. The writing was still beautiful, so I think it was definitely more the subject matter that didn't work for me. Either way, I'll be checking out whatever this author writes next.

Unfortunately, Feed Them Silence made me realize that Lee Mandelo is not the author for me. I thought his debut, Summer Sons, had a lot of potential, along with a lot of room for improvement. However, their sophomore book led me to feel that I’m just not the audience for his work. To start, this is definitely a book for people who have a particular interest in wolves, of which I am not. On top of that, I didn’t find there was much interest beyond the research storyline, as every interesting potentiality you’d expect the book might explore is quickly aborted before they can even begin. On top of that, the main character’s relationship problems were heard to care about when she clearly didn’t care about them herself. A storyline which also comes to a narratively unsatisfying ending, with her wife deciding to give her another chance on the basis of her having “learned something” from her experience with the wolves (what she is meant to have learned, and how it would make her more appreciative and proactive in her marriage, remains unclear to me). Overall, I certainly think this book will find its audience, just not with me. I would also still potentially be open to reading more from the author in the future, depending on the subject. Thank you to Tordotcom and Netgalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

TITLE: Feed Them Silence
AUTHOR: Lee Mandelo
112 pages, Tordotcom Publishing, ISBN 9781250824509 (hardcover; also, e-book and audio)

MY RATING: 4 stars out of 5

SHORT REVIEW: In Feed Them Silence, Lee Mandelo’s penchant for characters searching for answers to questions that get to the heart of who they are combines with their felicity with sensory details that immerse the reader in the character’s head and world to create a work of lush, sometimes gut-punching, beauty that questions where the line is between ethical and abusive research practices involving animals who can’t give consent and ruminates on human and animals’ shared need to belong. Feed Them Silence is a moving and effective look at the ways in which we seek connection and how our obsessions lead as much to heartbreak as to breakthroughs. At 112 pages, it’s a fast read but not a forgettable one.

LONGER REVIEW: Lee Mandelo’s new release, Feed Them Silence, is in concept and execution about as far as one can get from their previous book Summer Sons: novella vs. novel, science fiction rather than supernatural horror, cold labs and winter forests in place of hot Southern gothic buildings and summer cemeteries. What the works share is lead characters determined to find answers to questions that get to the heart of who they are, and Mandelo’s felicity with sensory details that immerse the reader in the character’s head and world.
Doctor Sean Kell-Luddon’s lifelong love of wolves has led to her current research project: using a surgically inserted neurological interface to transmit the thoughts and emotions of one of the world’s last free-roaming wild wolves to Sean’s own brain. (At the same time, her research team collects the raw data of the transmission for possible future use by the folks funding the research project.) Mandelo does a wonderful job contrasting Sean’s inner life when connected to her wolf Kate, especially the sense of belonging and emotional connection, with her outer life, which is clearly fraying even before the novella begins (especially her marriage, but her relationship to her team as well). Sean is searching not only for an understanding of, and a way to help, her nearly-extinct favorite species but also for a deeper connection psychologically to replace the one she’s losing in the physical world.

Scientists often speak of the dangers of anthropomorphizing – assigning human thoughts and characteristics to – animals (wild or domesticated) whose brains do not function the way ours do. Sean’s rational intention to avoid it falters the longer and more often she is directly connected to Kate via the interface. Transcribing what she gleans into human terms and being unable to separate her personal life from her project sets up the final conflict of the book beautifully.

If I have one complaint about the book, it’s that the narrow Sean-centric POV, which gives us such amazing insight into Sean’s intentions, history, and altering mental state, does not allow us to get to know some of the other characters as well as I would have liked, in particular Sean’s wife, Riya. Riya does play an important role in the story, she’s not just a prop to hang Sean’s faults on, so I would like to have seen some of the events of the book from her perspective. That’s the joy and the sting of novellas, though. I an avowed fan of the format, but the tight focus that makes novellas so enjoyable sometimes leaves us wanting the deeper insight a longer work might provide. That being said, the supporting cast of Feed Them Silence is all well-drawn and distinct. The world-building surrounding Sean, Riya, the team, and Kate is perfectly evoked: with just a few sentences, we know we are in a near-future where climate change has wreaked havoc on wild animal populations as resources dwindle. Also, a world where corporate interests are willing to fund cutting-edge research projects that academia is hesitant to touch – drawing attention to how hard it is to delineate that line where ethical research turns abusive and teasing questions of intent versus execution when it comes to the uses to which the research results are put.

Through it all, Mandelo fills the book with lush, sometimes gut-punching, sensory details, especially but not only when Sean is connected to Kate. I became completely immersed in descriptions of the cold winter forest, the aches and pains of being undernourished, the smells of fellow pack members, the taste of blood and raw meat as the pack takes down a rare bit of prey. I felt like I was truly there. There’s also a very affecting scene between Sean and her Riya that trades on the same level of sensory detail.

Feed Them Silence is a moving and effective look at the ways in which we seek connection and how our obsessions lead as much to heartbreak as to breakthroughs. At 112 pages, it’s a fast read but not a forgettable one.

I received an advance reading copy of this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. Feed Them Silence released on March 14, 2023.

Lee Mandelo really has raised the bar for 2023 new releases. Though not the kind of frightening that will keep you checking the shadowy corners every time you enter a room, Mandelo’s dark, sci-fi novella Feed Them Silence nevertheless has an unsettling air of wrongness that pervades the story and leaves you wondering what choices you, the reader, would have made in Sean’s place, and if you would have acted any differently. I absolutely loved it!