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Melanie Brooks is the author of the memoir A Hard Silence: One daughter remaps family, grief, and faith when HIV/AIDS changes it all (Vine Leaves Press, 2023) and Writing Hard Stories: Celebrated Memoirists Who Shaped Art from Trauma (Beacon Press, 2017) She teaches creative nonfiction in the M.F.A. program at Bay Path University and in the M.F.A. program at Western Connecticut State University and professional writing at Northeastern University. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast writing program and a Certificate in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University. She has had numerous interviews and essays on topics ranging from loss and grief to parenting and aging published in the The Boston Globe, HuffPost, Yankee Magazine, Psychology Today, The Washington Post, Ms. Magazine, Creative Nonfiction, and other notable publications. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband, two children (when they are home from university), and chocolate Lab.
Reviewed by Emma Megan for Readers' Favorite
A Hard Silence is a profoundly moving, personal, and informative account of the challenges of dealing with AIDS from a daughter's perspective. In 1985, Melanie Brooks's life was deeply affected by tragedy when her father contracted HIV from a blood transfusion during open-heart surgery. This memoir is about her father, how he was before and during his illness, and how the illness affected every family member, especially Melanie. Melanie was only thirteen years old when her beloved father, a surgeon, became a patient bearing the burden of HIV/AIDS. Melanie says that for many years she couldn't voice her pain and agony as her family decided not to tell anyone about her father's devastating illness. They wanted to avoid facing discrimination and the stigma that people infected with HIV faced during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. But remaining silent and living in isolation and secrecy affected her in ways she wasn't prepared for.
What this book teaches the reader more than anything else is that not talking about your tragedy, pain, sadness, and loneliness can lead to more severe problems later in life. Melanie Brooks's story of dealing with uncertainty, judgment, fear, faith crises, grief, and loss is essential reading. Her courage to finally lift the veil of secrecy and expose her trauma is impressive. This heart-wrenching and page-turning memoir describes what it was like to feel useless when someone you deeply love fights against an illness with no cure. It inspires those suffering from separation, loneliness, and loss who need compassion and support to speak about their struggles and pain and not feel alone anymore. I highly recommend A Hard Silence.
