I received this book from River Street Writing in exchange for an honest review.
“Fear is what makes people behave badly,” (Smythe 198).
Samara and J. have only started their relationship when they go off to visit J.’s hometown of Upton Bay, a smalltown where tourists visit and the wealthy live. Sam has been hired to write a piece promoting the tourist industry of Upton Bay while she and J. stay with J.’s grandfather Otto, a once prominent businessman who is now elderly and unwell. As Sam explores Upton Bay she sees the ugliness under the tourist attractions, particularly against it’s migrant workers. Sam can’t help but see the hypocrisy of how these workers are treated and how former migrants like Otto can look down on these people. Sam starts to suspect that Otto fled Germany for more nefarious reasons compared to the reasons her own mother and grandmother fled Norway during the second World War. That is until a family secret of Sam’s comes to light, and Sam starts to question everything.
A Town With No Noise felt like I was reading two different books. The first was an examination of class and wealth and the hypocrisy that often hides amongst the wealthy class versus the poor, the other was a look at family secrets and how their revelations can change how we see and understand ourselves. I think Smythe is a good writer and did a great job researching and writing the novel as a whole, but these two parts of the book just didn’t mesh as well as they could have.
It’s clear Smythe is trying to make them work. When Sam investigates the injury of a migrant worker on a winery and learns of the poor working conditions there, she confronts Otto’s hypocrisy since he often laments how difficult his life was as a German immigrant after the Second World War but believes the injured migrant worker should be grateful he has a job even if the conditions are poor without seeing the hypocrisy of his statement. This leads to Sam suspecting that Otto may have past Nazi ties in Germany while she herself has pride for her family fled Norway because of the Nazi occupation, believing her own grandfather died in battle before learning a family secret that reveals hypocrisy in her own life.
I understand the connection Smythe is trying to make, and I love the research she’s put into this book, but the tone and voice feel so separate from one another. In the first half readers explore Upton Bay and get a glimpse into the lives of it’s elderly residents, and their downfalls while the second half centres solely on Sam and her coping with a revelation about her grandmother’s past in Norway. We don’t see any of the characters from Upton Bay again and aren’t given many updates on what has happened to the residents there, and again it’s easy to see that these two parts are connected in theme but not in their voice which is a shame. It really pulled me out of the story.
I did enjoy reading A Town With No Noise because it’s incredibly well-written and well-researched, but it would have been a much stronger had the voice stayed the same. I look forward to what Smythe has to write next, but was disappointed this wasn’t as strong as it could have been.
Publication: May 20 2025
Publisher: Palimpsest Press
Pages: 200 pages (Paperback)
Source: River Street Writing
Genre: Fiction, Literary, Canadian
My Rating: ⛤⛤⛤.5
Summary:
Samara and J., a struggling young couple, are off to J.’s birthplace, Upton Bay, a small town turned upscale theatre and winery destination. Sam has been hired by an editor friend to write a promotional piece about the place while she and J. stay with his grandfather Otto, a prominent businessman in his day. But their visit does not go as planned. Sam’s explorations of Upton’s tourist attractions lead her to ugly truths behind the quaint little town’s façade—discoveries that are counterpointed with vignettes of the town’s wealthy, elderly ruling class, painting a different picture than the one Sam’s friend expects her to provide. Tensions between Sam and J. worsen as J.’s true nature emerges and Sam begins to question both his values and his family’s past—especially after Otto tells them stories about his time as a German soldier during WW2. Back in the city, Sam’s opinions and judgments about what is right and wrong are tested when a shocking truth surfaces about her grandmother’s flight from Norway after the war, profoundly changing Sam’s understanding of who she is and who she wants to become. In A Town with No Noise, fact and fiction combine to ask difficult questions about the communities we build, questions that are as relevant today as ever: Who stays? Who is chased away? And who decides?
Sarah O'Connor 