The Shape of the Silence

By Padraic Maher Cepek

Fifteen stories. One grief that changes shape every time you try to hold it.

In The Shape of the Silence, memory becomes a haunting, and silence becomes a character. These lyrical, fractured fictions explore what happens in the aftermath of loss-when the dust won't settle, when the room remembers more than we do, and when the moon falls without warning.

A child catalogs objects after his sister disappears.
A father plays a board game with a daughter who might already be gone.
Children whisper to the silence their parents left behind.
Grief moves through walls, language, and breath.

Blending magical realism, poetic storytelling, and mythic structure, this is a collection where time bends, dust listens, and the dead are almost-almost-within reach. These stories do not offer resolution. They offer breath. Ritual. Memory. Echo.

For readers of Ocean Vuong, Jesmyn Ward, Carmen Maria Machado, and anyone who has ever tried to rewrite the story of their grief.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0F6LVTPSX
• ISBN13: 9798281090896
• Release Date: April 2025
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 82 Pages
• Weight: 0.27 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 6.0" x 9.0"