The Silence
The Silence of the Lambs is a psychological horror novel by Thomas Harris. First published in 1988, it is the sequel to Harris's 1981 novel Red Dragon. Both novels feature the cannibalistic serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter, this time pitted against FBI Special Agent Clarice Starling. The novel won the 1988 Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel. The novel also won the 1989 Anthony Award for Best Novel. It was nominated for the 1989 World Fantasy Award.
Themes & atmosphere
What you might want to know about The Silence
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
On Super Bowl Sunday 2022, five New Yorkers gather in a Manhattan apartment to watch the game: a couple flying back from Paris, a retired physics professor and his wife, and a young Einstein scholar. Their plane lands roughly, and a few minutes after kickoff every screen and phone goes black.
Multiple novels share this title. The metadata above lists Thomas Harris (who wrote The Silence of the Lambs but no novel by just The Silence). The most-searched recent novel is The Silence by Don DeLillo (2020) or by Susan Allott (2020).
Yes. The Silence (2020) is Don DeLillo's short novel set during a 2022 Super Bowl as the world experiences a sudden technology blackout. It is around 120 pages.
The Silence is 352 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Silence takes most readers 5 to 8 hours to finish.
The Silence is a standalone novel by Thomas Harris, not part of a series.
The Silence is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.