Description

A Quiet Undoing is a powerful work of literary fiction about memory, trauma, and the courage it takes to speak what was never meant to be spoken.

Michael Talbot lives a quiet life in the suburbs—a husband, a father, an ordinary man with no reason to look back. Until something small and strange shatters his routine: a smell, a hallway, a voice. Suddenly, memories he thought were gone begin to resurface. Not dreams. Not stories. Fragments. Feelings. A name: Vernon.

As the truth pushes upward from the depths of his mind, Michael must confront a buried past—one shaped by a trusted youth minister and a church that protected silence over children. What begins as a private reckoning becomes something larger: a choice to speak publicly, to risk disbelief, and to face the full weight of an institution built to deny.

But Michael is not alone. Others begin to emerge—voices with stories too similar to ignore. Together, they begin to form a circle of remembrance, defiance, and healing. They walk back into the places that wounded them. They speak to the systems that tried to forget them. And they learn, piece by piece, that telling the truth is not about revenge. It's about reclaiming your life.

Set in the fictional Midwestern town of Mason Hollow, A Quiet Undoing explores the long silence that follows childhood sexual abuse—and the profound, complicated process of recovering what was taken. This is not a courtroom drama. It's not a mystery to be solved. It's a story of emotional survival, built on realism and care.