Discover Well-Read Black Girl Books and the projects reshaping publishing →

Book Summary and Reviews of The Silence and the Rage by Pierre Lemaitre

The Silence and the Rage by Pierre Lemaitre

The Silence and the Rage

by Pierre Lemaitre

  • Published:
  • Jul 2025, 480 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

From "a novelist at the height of his powers," a dramatic and jubilant dive into France in the "glory days" of the 1950s, through the lens of one ambitious, troubled, and utterly compelling family (La Croix).

It is 1952 and the grown children of Louis Pelletier, a prominent businessman with a dark past, have settled in Paris. Jean, the menacing eldest brother, hides a terrible secret and is trapped in a stifling marriage, his days lightened only by his love for his three-year-old daughter. François, an up-and-coming reporter, is caught up in a volatile love affair. And Hélène, their younger sister, strives to make her own way as a journalist, but as a woman in a man's world, she faces extraordinary challenges as she fights to expose a vast industrial scandal.

Dark and compelling, witty and vivid, and filled with surprising reversals and cliffhangers, The Silence and the Rage is the story of one remarkable family against the backdrop of France during one of its most thrilling and volatile periods.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

Media reviews not yet available.

This information about The Silence and the Rage was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Click here and be the first to review this book!

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Pierre Lemaitre

Pierre Lemaitre is a French novelist and screenwriter whose books, among them The Wide World and The Great Swindle, have been translated into more than forty languages. He has twice won the Prix Goncourt, France's top literary award, and is a three-time winner of the Crime Writers' Association International Dagger. He lives in Paris.

More Author Information

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked The Silence and the Rage, try these:

  • Change jacket

    Change

    by Edouard Louis

    Published 2025

    About this book

    An autobiographical novel from Édouard Louis, hailed as one of the most important voices of his generation—about social class, transformation, and the perils of leaving the past behind.

  • The Paris Hours jacket

    The Paris Hours

    by Alex George

    Published 2021

    About this book

    Told over the course of a single day in 1927, The Paris Hours takes four ordinary people whose stories, told together, are as extraordinary as the glorious city they inhabit.

  • The Balcony jacket

    The Balcony

    by Jane Delury

    Published 2019

    About this book

    A century-spanning portrait of the inhabitants of a French village, revealing the deception, despair, love, and longing beneath the calm surface of ordinary lives.

We have 10 read-alikes for The Silence and the Rage, but non-members are limited to three results. Join free to see the complete list of recommendations.
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes

More Historical Fiction

Browse all Historical Fiction books

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
When No One Else Will
by Amanda Skenandore
1940s Chicago nurse risks everything at an illegal women’s clinic during a high-profile trial of courage and sisterhood.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket
    Look What You Made Me Do
    by John Lanchester
    A propulsive tale of intergenerational tension and revenge from the Booker Prize nominee.
  • Book Jacket
    The Jellyfish Problem
    by Tessa Yang
    A marine biologist rescues a Maine island menaced by a giant glowing jellyfish in this inventive debut.
  • Book Jacket
    Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young
    by Zayd Ayers Dohrn
    Son of Weather Underground radicals recounts life on the run and decades of revolutionary struggle.
Who Said...

A book may be compared to your neighbor...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Book
Trivia
  • Book Trivia

    Can you name the title?

    Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

Q S, S

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.