After a harrowing rescue from forced captivity, Hovsep's (who now goes by Joe) sister Mary has joined him and his wife Helen in Detroit. Her impending marriage fills her with uncertainty, but she remains taciturn and moves forward, grateful for her place in the new country. Joe and Helen continue to add to their burgeoning family, charting a course forward for their kin in America. Meanwhile, back in Kaladouran, Louisa and her family are faced with mass exile as her village is taken. Alice and her siblings are accosted by Turks and scattered in the wake of increasingly vicious attacks. And Marta, Mary's sister, is taken captive. As tensions rise, the contrasts between the two worlds become more and more stark.

Silence, Denice Peter Karamardian's second installment in the Odar series, takes up the difficult topic of collective trauma and how to bear witness when the resources for doing so have faded with time and circumstance.