A well-crafted, carefully observed series of stories centering around the possible suicide of a young woman. In some ways, "The Year of Silence" might be called comfort reading: it's a good example of American short-story realism at the end of the twentieth century, the kind that often gets published in magazines. Bell's as good as good at this game as just about anyone else, though: his characters seem like real people, he's got a gift for detail -- he describes light particularly well -- and every once in a while one of his more poetic phrases hits home. This might not be life-altering stuff for most people, but it's good writing nonetheless. While its prose is rather formal, this book's structure is a bit unconventional: a few of these short stories are told from the viewpoint of characters who were only vaguely acquainted with its central protagonist. Some of these might be called gimmicky (an old woman, a dwarf) but the story told from the perspective of the police officers called to investigate the young woman's disappearance is quite effective. I also liked the New York that Bell places his characters in: it seems darker and grittier than the current model, and, since "The Year of Silence" was written before the tech boom transformed the way that young people communicate with each other, the novel, though not thirty years old, already seems like a relic of a bygone age. Landlines, face-to-face conversations, the local bar: it was how people got by, way back when. ( )

quite good, chapters are like short stories and could almost be read like that as the plot doesn't run in order. a lot of characters, a tad difficult to remember who is who for some of the characters. probably better read in a sitting but what isn't. ( )