A History of Silence is a book about a country and a broken landscape. It's about the devastation in Christchurch, after the 2011 earthquake. It's about how easily we erase stories we find inconvenient. It's about the fault lines which that cataclysmic event opened up in Lloyd Jones' understanding of his own family history.

"As the New Zealand city of Christchurch lies in ruins after the catastrophic earthquake of February 2011, Lloyd Jones begins a search for his past, a search that takes him through childhood memories of puzzling events to Pembroke Dock in Wales, and finally to the discovery of a devastating court transcript. On this extraordinary journey, he pieces together the fragments of a story that has been buried in his family for a lifetime. A mother who gave up her daughter, a naval captain drowned at sea, a marriage to save a child. And a truth that changes everything."--Back cover.