The Rest is Silence

Author	Fotheringham, Scott
Year	2012
First published	2012
Publisher	Canada: Goose Lane Editions
Number of pages	330
Edition	Paperback Edition
ISBN	9780864926562
Keywords	biochemistry, microbiology, pollution/contamination, literary or mainstream, speculative fiction, female scientist, scientist main character, USA or Canada

Abstract

North Mountain, Nova Scotia. An unnamed hermit lives off the land. He tries to find love and community in this place he has decided to call home and to shake off the ghosts that haunt him. Even in his newfound domestic bliss he can’t let go of his past and starts to tell his story as a way to make sense of things. Manhattan. Benny is an ambitious graduate student, obsessed with the idea of destroying plastic waste. She is driven by a clear-eyed understanding of humanity’s failure to self-regulate. In this brave, new world, she creates bacteria that consume plastic, inadvertently creating shortages of everything from water to computers and dissolving hospital equipment, pacemakers, and shunts.