Forthcoming · Contemporary fiction
Marcus Bell wanted to get home. Now the whole world wants his story.
After a late restaurant shift, Marcus records wealthy developer Richard Sterling following him through a parking lot, hurling racial abuse. The 131-second video makes it impossible to deny what happened. It also makes his worst night impossible to keep private.
Strangers call him brave. His neighbors want him to fight. But Marcus still has two jobs to get to, bills to pay and a family whose needs don’t pause for public outrage.
His wife, Denise, has spent years making room for everybody else’s future. Their nineteen-year-old son, Caleb, thinks he can help by turning the recording into music. When the song begins opening doors, protecting his father becomes tangled with wanting a life of his own.
Then a second video gives the public a new story to tell—and an offer from Sterling forces the Bells to confront what they can afford to refuse.
The Price of Silence is an intimate contemporary novel about a Black working-class family, a marriage under pressure, and the uneasy distance between standing your ground and keeping a family together.
Editorial Feature in the Journal
Explore our long-form introduction to the book’s themes, character dynamics, and setting: The Currency of Dignity: Introducing Isaiah Harland and ‘The Price of Silence’.
Editions
Paperback
In preparation
Kindle
In preparation