＊《Kirkus 书评》、《Publishers Weekly》、《Booklist》强力推荐！
＊ 多位作者好评！
 
一个时间横跨将近六十年的故事，由人心的罪恶感交织着秘密、背叛、爱，串起母女间、家庭中、手足间、婚姻里的细微关系。对爱的渴望可以让事情变简单，却也可能会转变成罪。虽然此书设定的年代久远，但其中涵盖的议题非常广，不论是家庭、婚姻、女性地位与角色、宗教及道德都有非常细致地着墨，会让人陷入思考。
 
黑暗的矿坑里埋的不只是让男人养家活口的煤矿，还有这个小镇多年的秘密。

1916年，Myrthen Bergmann 的双胞胎姐妹意外去世，自此，她便带着压抑在心中的罪恶感与外界隔绝，盲目地将自己“奉献”给神。她的邻居 Alta Krol 在母亲死后，担起家务，照顾父亲与兄弟们，将想成为艺术家的梦想抛在责任后。几年后，这两位个性截然不同的女人，在时代加注于女性的压力下，走入应该却不从己意的婚姻。Myrthen 与 Alta 心爱的男人结婚了，Alta 则妥协于平淡无奇的生活。

1944年，Myrthen 的丈夫 John 从战场上退役返家时，这两对夫妇的婚姻出现了转折。Alta 和 John 重逢，Myrthen 则尝试回到神的怀抱。看似平静、秩序回归的一切，在一场矿坑爆炸意外后，与亡者一起进了棺材。

时间来到1965年，小镇里的少女 Lidia，产下一名男婴，Gabriel。早熟的 Gabriel 会说话后，开始说些 Lidia 摸不着头绪的话，但这些话却让小镇里的居民心生恐惧。他们开始怀疑男孩体内有邪灵作怪，而这一切都和 Myrthen 对信仰和救赎的执迷不悟有关‥‥‥
 
好评
「[A] sweeping novel…Cander divinely delves into multiple points of view, crafting a collage of vibrant, layered characters while charting six decades of poignant, precise moments. A distinctive novel that sublimely measures the distressed though determined heartbeat of a small mountain community.」 —Kirkus (starred review)
 
「[Chris Cander] admirably captures the lack of choice that men and women have in rural West Virginia.」 —Publishers Weekly
 
「Cander superbly envisions the town, its residents’ dynamics, and the early twentieth-century immigrant experience…[and] rewards the reader with…well-developed, believable characters whose mental fortitude and capacity to love linger in the reader’s mind long after the last page.」—Booklist
 
「With memorable characters and a haunting setting, Chris Cander weaves a compelling tale of the transformative power of love in the face of buried truths that threaten literally to explode.」 —Ann-Marie MacDonald, author of Adult Onset
 
「Sometimes fiction is so good, so authentic, and the storyteller so convincing, that it just feels true. Whisper Hollow is one of those books. I’m blown away, honestly. Chris Cander has created characters with immortal souls.」—Jamie Ford, author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
 
「The men in Chris Cander’s Whisper Hollow toil underground, in the dark and dangerous coal mines of West Virginia. But her women mine territory twice as dark and twice as dangerous, they mine the human heart. Love and loss, devotion and longing, hope and despair, Cander renders all of this and more through the lives of three women spanning more than fifty years. Here is a novel so full of life—of its beauty and cruelty—that I emerged from it like one of those men walking from mines she so wonderfully evokes, like a man walking from the darkness into the light.」—Peter Geye, author of The Lighthouse Road
 
「Whisper Hollow is a haunting novel about the malleability of memory, about secrets and trickery, and about saints who are sinners and sinners who are saints. Cander paints a colorful portrait of a multi-ethnic, multi-generational West Virginia coal camp: a heaven of opportunity to some, a hell of stunted choices to others.」—Marie Manilla, author of The Patron Saint of Ugly
 
关于作者
Chris Cander，1990年毕业于休士顿大学，主修法文，副修政治科学。从十岁时，自己写的诗赢得地区性的创意写作竞赛后，她便知道自己要透过书写追求人生中的幸福。Whisper Hollow 是她第二本小说。她的处女作 11 Stories 被科克斯书评选为2013年最佳独立大众小说。