A Fifty Year Silence

‘It is exceedingly rare to find a book that touches you deep down – page by page – through the rawness of its story and its sheer insight. A Fifty-Year Silence is one such book. The extraordinary quality of the prose, the elegance of the storytelling, and the genius with which Richmond Mouillot has laid down the twists and turns make this a book to treasure. As good as any detective story, it is a memoir that sings to us all and one that I recommend very highly indeed.’ Tahir Shah, author of The Caliph’s House

‘An existential detective story, a family chronicle, a journey of self-discovery, a meditation on memory, a reckoning with ghosts of a tragic past – and miraculously this luminous book succeeds on all levels. The complex, unforgettable characters of Anna and Armand belong in a novel. The author’s own quest to uncover the startling truth about their relationship has the candor and intimacy of the best kind of memoir.’ Anya von Bremzen, author of Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking

‘Bravely confronts a truth that most memoirs deny: even the most thorough investigation of family history cannot elucidate the heart of the past. Richmond Mouillot’s voice – shaped by stories, yet resisting any single story – does the profound work of using imagination, place, love, and art to transform the unknowable past into a rooted, liberating spring of identity.’ Anouk Markovits, author of I Am Forbidden

‘The past is truly prologue in Miranda Richmond Mouillot’s loving, suspenseful, and determined quest to uncover the mysterious wound that divides her family. She holds us fascinated in intimate spaces where generations seek each other and beautifully explores how time and memory challenge all of us.’ Leslie Maitland, author of Crossing the Borders of Time

‘A Fifty-Year Silence brings to life a singular family across generations, whose lives refuse to become a cliché. This story of love and war, written in elegant, sometimes soaring prose, grapples with life, death, and the mystery of resilience.’ Marianne Szegedy-Maszák, author of I Kiss Your Hands Many Times

‘Richmond Mouillot draws a powerful portrait of her beloved grandparents, long estranged from one another yet both in love with their only granddaughter, whose own lives are a microcosm of the impact of the Holocaust. In discovering what drove them apart, she unfolds a captivating, intensely moving tale of family, love, war, loss, and finding oneself in the tea leaves of the past.’ Sarah Wildman, author of Paper Love

‘A keenly observed and poignant memoir of one young woman’s journey from North Carolina to the south of France, and from the present day into the dark spaces in the history of her family and of Europe.’ Matti Friedman, author of The Aleppo Codex and winner of the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature

ENCHANTING SETTING: Richmond Mouillot conjures the charms of the French countryside and the intimacy of small-town life precisely and elegantly.

THIRD GENERATION: Amidst the abundance of books from Holocaust survivors and the children of those affected by the war, few nonfiction accounts of the Holocaust and World War II have been written from the perspective of the grandchildren. A Fifty-Year Silence explores the afterlife of the past for young Jewish people today and provokes an important dialogue about the inheritance of historical memory.

ALLURE OF A MYSTERY: Family secrets and their slow unraveling is a proven subject matter for memoir.

RELATABLE VOICE: As a debut author and a young woman navigating the conflicting imperatives to remember the past and embrace her future, Richmond Mouillot writes with a warmth, directness, and honesty that will endear her to a broad readership.