Sentencing Silence: What is it that we cannot hold in our hands that holds us like a fist?

What is it we cannot hold in our hands that holds us like a fist? This is the question that June, Reni and Sandy must answer. Each of them only wants to return to college to study and write poetry, but the circumstances of their lives make this impossible. Set in 1980s Chicago, June, a trophy wife, denies her future by submerging herself in domestic life as she tries to repair a damaged and dangerous marriage. Reni, embracing her anger, decides becoming a call girl is both her fate and a fast-track to earning tuition and living independently. Sandy, a factory worker, falls deeply in love with an eccentric young artist who promises to return her to a time of unadulterated innocence. With each turn through tragic loss and increasing silence, they slowly realize that it is that very silence they’ve been burdened to keep that prevents them not only from realizing their hopes, but the possibility of any meaningful existence. Sentencing Silence, a 2019 National Indie Excellence Award Finalist in Literary Fiction, takes the reader on a journey of self-discovery toward breaking the silence inherent in rape culture and sexual abuse that holds its survivors captive in the traumatic pasts that thwart their dreams.