Speak No Evil by Liana Gardner

Vesuvian Books, 2019

ISBN-13: 978-1944109363

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition

Speak No Evil is an unusual book in that while it has some mild supernatural elements, is really about the often unspeakable horror of what humans do to each other.  Melody is a selectively mute 16 year old girl in foster care, going through court-mandated therapy after stabbing a popular boy at her high school. The therapist, Dr. Roger Kane, needs to get Melody to speak so she can make a statement about the events that led to the stabbing and the case can be resolved.

Melody has a gift with music that is almost supernatural, and a unique backstory. Her biracial mother and her family belonged to an evangelical snake-handling church, and her Cherokee father reached an agreement with Melody’s mother and the church’s pastor that he would care for the snakes, healing and releasing them when they were ill and replacing them with newly caught ones. Melody, while not allowed near the snakes, can charm them with her singing. When her parents die, she is removed from her uncle’s care after he threatens her with a rattlesnake, and she enters the foster care system. Melody has a loving, long term relationship with her Native American foster mother, a wise woman who encourages Melody’s singing. Unfortunately, her foster mother is elderly and becomes ill. Melody has to go to a different placement with a family that overlooks disturbing behavior on the part of their son that eventually results in violence towards her, and then a placement with a different family that results in even more traumatic experiences, bullying at school, and, after she tells her social worker what happened, a life-threatening assault. The icky, vicious, and vile things done to Melody are very convincingly written, a punch to the gut. This combination of circumstances over time has convinced Melody that every time she speaks up, something terrible happens, so she refuses to speak, even to defend herself. It’s a heartbreaking story.

Her therapist is able to get her to open up by approaching her through her love of music.  Choosing music that communicates her feelings from her MP3 player starts to get Melody to open up, bit by bit. Most of the music is original to the book;  it was written by Lucas Astor and is attributed either to Melody (such as “Rattlesnake Song”, which she sings spontaneously to charm snakes) or appears in the story as unnamed choices from her MP3 player. The lyrics are a perfect fit to the story, and I only wish that the music had been recorded.

Dr. Kane’s nonconfrontational approach to what are clearly symptoms of PTSD allows Melody to share at her own pace, building up her comfort level until she’s able to communicate verbally. Gardner segues smoothly between therapy sessions and Melody’s memories, but the memories are out of order chronologically, which makes it a little difficult to follow the story. While I found the therapist and his approach interesting, I was somewhat surprised by his level of informality with Melody and his strong dislike of  Melody’s foster mother (not the most insightful person, but obviously trying to make things work). Melody’s strong, positive relationship with her caseworker, Miss Prescott, was also surprising, as Miss Prescott left Melody in terrible situations, completely obliviously, two separate times.  Gardner makes it clear, though, that both adults are solidly in Melody’s corner.

In a note, Gardner writes that the story comes in part from her personal experiences, and her writing gives a powerful voice to Melody and other girls and women who feel they cannot speak to defend and protect themselves. Speak No Evil is certainly a novel for the #MeToo era. I’m not sure it belongs in the horror genre, but it certainly contains horrors, and it isn’t a book that will be forgotten easily.  Recommended for high school and YA library collections.

Contains: Violence, reptile torture and killing, child abuse, child sexual abuse, rape, attempted rape, bullying.

Editor’s note:  Speak No Evil was nominated to the final ballot of the 2019 Bram Stoker Award in the category of Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel.