Four Days of Silence

Four Days of Silence is what critics mean when they talk about good escapist entertainment. Drawing on many classic western conventions, but always maintaining an originality and freshness, Larry D. Clark's novel is a story of violence and brutality contrasted by gentleness and love. It is the story of Adam Chandler, willing to sacrifice everything to retrieve over 23 million dollars in gold taken from his great-grandfather by hostile Indians in the high Simcoe Mountains of Washington State. Already, the lure of the gold has called three generations of Chandlers to their deaths. An Indian/white man love triangle over an Indian girl, an ancient legend surrounding intrusion of the Yakama Indians' sacred land in the Simcoe Mountains, a curse carried by the Chandler family, and a volcanic eruption during Adam Chandler's own death ceremony add up to a page-turner. Chandler finds himself suspended over a bed of one hundred rattlesnakes - the death pit of his ancestors - at the hands of the Ancient Ones. He finally understands the Yakama Indians' secret as he stares down at his great-grandfather's skeleton in the death pit. The will of the Yakamas to preserve the secret of the Ancient Ones in the high Simcoes is as strong as Adam Chandler's will to fulfill his own family's destiny as both Levi Strongbull and Adam Chandler struggle over their individual compulsions and their love for the same woman. From beginning to end, Four Days of Silence offers strong action and fine characterizations in an engrossing story that adds up to great entertainment and a quick read.