I erupt into high-pitched, terse laughter when I see chaos unfolding. It’s an uncontrollable reaction, a faltering, and it results from a disbelief that things are falling apart. It’s ugly, nervous laughter, and it puts no one at ease. But I will admit that a tiny part of it is voyeurism: I like seeing people in power become uncomfortable when their world no longer resembles the one they are used to. But, then again, this situation of late, this Reckoning, isn’t really putting anyone at ease.

For its survival, power requires a structure strong enough to withstand the weight of any pressure. And the obliqueness of power is due to a series of adjacent structures holding it in place, reinforcing it. Silence is not an element of that structure: it is simply a way to measure the complexity of power dynamics. What I mean is, silence can be a presence, yet its existence is only established by the absence of voice or its volume. As Rebecca Solnit wrote in her recent commentary on silence, The Mother of All Questions, the disintegration of that structure and the liberation of an oppressive tool, results in ‘breaking stories, breaking silences, making new stories’. The degree of power in any given relationship is relative to the abundance of silence. Visibility, objectivity, impartiality: none of these exist in a power structure laced with silence. The novel’s two parts—‘Silence is Broken’ and ‘Breaking the Story’—provide a structure for the consideration of two novels released this year: Lullaby and Peach.