Something strange is happening in Australia. People who should be dying, aren’t – even a tourist dismembered by dingoes. The non-deaths create havoc across the country, but sixteen-year-old Nick Hartford just feels relief. His terminally ill grandfather can now live forever.
But Nick soon realizes eternal life can bring eternal suffering.
Determined to help his beloved grandfather, Nick investigates a phenomenon that traps people between life and death, leaving them unable to communicate with the living or join the dead. What he discovers is linked to the last person to die: a reclusive neighbor who may be Death himself.
As his grandfather’s condition worsens, Nick and three classmates race to unravel the mystery. Their urgency grows when he learns one of those friends could be next to enter the chasm between living and dying.
Darkly funny and deftly paced, "Unsilent Heart" is a coming-of-age novel about what death adds to life, the demands of loyalty, and how to find love when time is short.
Something strange is happening in Australia. People who should be dying, aren’t – even a tourist dismembered by dingoes. The non-deaths create havoc across the country, but sixteen-year-old Nick Hartford just feels relief. His terminally ill grandfather can now live forever.
But Nick soon realizes eternal life can bring eternal suffering.
Determined to help his beloved grandfather, Nick investigates a phenomenon that traps people between life and death, leaving them unable to communicate with the living or join the dead. What he discovers is linked to the last person to die: a reclusive neighbor who may be Death himself.
As his grandfather’s condition worsens, Nick and three classmates race to unravel the mystery. Their urgency grows when he learns one of those friends could be next to enter the chasm between living and dying.
Darkly funny and deftly paced, "Unsilent Heart" is a coming-of-age novel about what death adds to life, the demands of loyalty, and how to find love when time is short.
Maybe I worry too much. But beside me, my phone sat on death row with a lightning bolt of fractured glass and little hope of a pardon. Outside the kitchen window, magpies swooped with vengeful, clacking beaks. Twenty minutes away, my grandfather’s body shriveled by the week except for an overripe plum that fed on his liver. And in places unknown were girls named Ellie.
Or maybe everyone behaved this way and worried until the moment they couldn’t. Like Mum, who fretted over a visit to the hospital on that normal morning, our last before we confronted death as no one ever had. Or Dad, who cursed a cryptic crossword full of morbid clues, while I struggled with an assignment that would haunt me for a week.
I was supposed to write my obituary for English class, but I couldn’t find anything worth saying.
Nick Hartford, who achieved nothing of note in sixteen years, died on Tuesday after being hit by an Uber Eats driver while watching Taylor Swift memes on TikTok. He might be missed by Bowie, his border collie.
That was sure to dazzle Ms. Bellinger.
Mum fixed me in a stare. “Don’t be late for school again.”
Dad spun a pencil around his thumb in a yellow blur. “Nine letters for Death of a company official. Starts with e-x.”
Mum wanted to be with her dad, Grandpa Tom, for some medical appointment, but she had a conference to run and doubted she could drive across town during lunch and return before the afternoon session began. She’s a nervous driver, always asking me to recheck the blind spot, as if refrigerators might plummet from the sky and find her no matter which lane she chose.
Dad counted letters on his fingers and chuckled. “Exec-u-tion.”
Lately, Mum had been visiting Grandpa Tom a lot, sitting beside him with Grandma Lillian while he underwent chemo for liver cancer. Over dinner, she would update us and speak of the cancer being in stages, as if his tumors were costumed dancers performing a primitive ritual inside his body.
The last time I saw him was at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital three weeks ago. The whites of his eyes were yolky like runny eggs, and the flesh of his legs dented like gray putty. After a few minutes, Mum, Dad, and Grandma Lillian went out. They said they were getting coffees, but I knew it didn’t take three people to carry a few paper cups.
Once the sound of their footsteps had faded, Grandpa Tom asked if I could do something for him.
“Of course,” I said. “Anything.”
He pointed at a bleeping monitor. “Shut that thing up, will you?”
I stepped toward the machine. I’d hoped to find a mute button, but all I saw were squiggly lines and numbers.
I didn’t want to fail him, though, so I kept looking for a long time.
“What are you doing?” The monitor registered an impatient spike. “Found it?”
“Nearly,” I said, tracing the sides, bottom, and back of the screen.
“Just press everything and see what happens.” (I saw where Mum got her approach to solving tech problems.)
I opened my phone and asked AI how to adjust the model number. It confidently replied, but I didn’t trust the answer.
“I’m not sure we should be messing with this,” I said. “I think the top line is for your heart, but I don’t know what all these numbers mean. They’re probably important.”
“Maybe. I don’t care anymore. That thing’s only there to prevent me from getting some sleep,” he said. “Unplug it.”
I smiled. I thought he was joking, but he wasn’t.
“Turn it off, Nick… Before they come back… Please.”
I stood frozen, mesmerized by the lines that sped across the screen in some unending race. I didn’t want to disappoint him, but I feared disabling the monitor might harm him. I didn’t want to be the person responsible for that. I couldn’t do what he’d asked, and I couldn’t admit it to him. Or myself.
But he knew anyway. He reached for my hand and held it with a feeble grip. We stayed like that for most of a minute before he spoke again.
“I shouldn’t have asked you to do that,” he said.
“That’s okay.”
“It’s just been … It’s been a bad day.” He sounded like his chest had run out of air. “I’ve had enough.”
“Enough what?”
“Enough everything.”
I said I understood, even though I didn’t think I really did.
We stayed like that, quietly listening to the monitor’s tone-deaf beeps, before he managed to speak again. “Don’t tell your grandmother or parents about this, okay? Ever.”
“All right,” I vowed.
When they got back, coffees in hand, Grandpa Tom looked me in the eye as a reminder of my promise.
Back in the kitchen, Mum leaned across the table. “Nick, you’re going to miss your bus.”
Dad’s pencil circled his thumb again. “A natural killer disturbed in the act, three letters.”
“Cat,” he announced as he wrote the answer.
Since May, Mum had been recording Grandpa Tom’s locations on the kitchen calendar: home, hospital, home, hospital.
Whenever she returned from seeing him, her eyes were puffy and red, and she shuffled along like Andy Mason, a supersmart kid at my school who clomps around in orthopedic shoes because his legs were mangled in a car accident.
I wished I could help Grandpa Tom (and Mum), but Year 10 students don’t discover many medical breakthroughs, so I mostly just tried to keep her spirits up. Grandpa Tom had done everything the doctors had asked and never missed a treatment. So, his trip to the hospital that day seemed like it might be something to celebrate.
“If you miss your bus,” Mum said, “I can’t drive you to school today.”
Dad looked up. “Did you miss the bus again?”
“Nick!”
I grabbed my schoolbag, shouted “bye” and rushed out the front door. I heard the bus gun its engine to climb Heartbreak Hill, which meets the eastern end of our street. I’d never make it unless I ran west and caught the bus after it turned onto Morgan Street and coasted back down the hill.
I took a breath and sprinted. The wind blurred my sight, but I noticed the front door of a house nine or ten properties from where I live, on the opposite side of our street, was wide open, like the owner was trying to air out some rotting stench. But no one was around. I saw only the black of an empty hallway before I cut up a side street. Then, with a swerve to the left, I cut through a deserted lane, hurdling over recycling bins. I caught the bus just as it arrived. Yes, I said to myself, confident a good day lay ahead.
The bus was crowded with men whose ties were lassoed around razor-burnt necks, and perfume-soaked women with puffy ankles. I stood and retrieved my phone from my front pants pocket to check an app called You Dob You Die. Maybe “app” is a bit grand. It’s just a feed of school gossip made by a student who’s a coding wizard. I read the latest post—Sienna Cartwright from Year 11 experienced a fetal error after her boyfriend’s condom broke—and shook my head. Poor Sienna.
The only other notification on the phone was a text from my classmate James.
The Rapture… with four exclamation marks.
My eyes rolled up to the grime-coated ceiling of the bus. As penance for admitting I couldn’t stand his music, James had been texting me the names of Christian rock bands for days. Each group was fronted by a sweaty Jesus look-alike clutching a microphone with both hands, blood vessels set to burst with each strangled note. I didn’t click the link James sent for The Rapture!!!! Four exclamation marks was five more than I could bear.
Across from me, a gray-haired woman was in tears staring at her phone, although I didn’t know if she was happy or sad. I couldn’t see the screen, but I saw her chest convulse as she gulped for air. Like someone had forced her to watch a video for The Rapture!!!!
She turned to the hipster in headphones seated beside her, apologetic for the intrusion, and held out her phone. He hesitated, confused, then looked. His eyes widened, and he stroked his bird’s nest of a beard. They shared an astonished look, then retreated into their private worlds, strangers again by the time the bus slowed for my stop.
I was later than ideal, but still early enough to catch up with friends before class. James, in a peach-colored shirt, and Kieran, with a baseball cap turned low and backwards, were in our usual spot under the camphor laurel tree, arguing. It’s what they do.
I’ve known them both since primary school. In Year 4, James grew until he was the tallest kid in our class. His ears kept going higher and higher like sunflowers, but his embarrassed shoulders stayed humble and low with us. He’s the opposite of Kieran, who looks like he’s permanently wearing a puffer jacket. I wouldn’t call Kieran fat, but if the three of us were stranded on a desert island, he’d survive the longest.
“It’s just temporary,” Kieran was saying. “There’s a backlog, like when everyone used to preorder the same release at EB Games and you had to wait for a new shipment.”
“We’re talking about lives, not PlayStation orders.” James sounded like he was explaining climate change to his cat. “Ever heard of statistics?”
Unusually, Kieran ignored the taunt. “Be patient. Heaps of people will die soon enough. It’s only been a couple of hours.”
“A couple? More like four.”
I dropped my schoolbag and sat alongside them. “Eleven hours, actually.”
They both went quiet, surprised by whatever I had unwittingly said. But I was just stirring. “What are we talking about?”
“The Rapture,” James said.
Kieran pointed a dismissive thumb at James. “Holy Boy here thinks the Bilpin guy is proof that God is about to save his homeboys.”
“Those who accept Him will live forever.” James attends Catholic church services every Sunday. He doesn’t usually talk religious stuff with us, but nothing was holding him back that day. “It’s the Bible’s promise.”
“The only promise is that you’re gonna look like an idiot.”
“Me? You’re the doofus who doesn’t think doctors can tell if someone’s dead.”
That’s when I surrendered. “What are you talking about?”
“Keep up, Nick. The Rapture. I sent you a link about Bilpin.”
“There is no Rapture,” Kieran corrected. “A few people in Australia haven’t died. But they will.”
“No,” James said. “Never again.”
“Bilpin?” I pleaded.
James sighed. It was punishment for not following the link in his text, but he explained everything anyway. An apple farmer in Bilpin had fallen under a tractor and been tilled into his orchard like fertilizer pellets. But somehow, he wasn’t dead. So, it was a miracle—the Rapture. And, according to James, anyone who believed in Jesus was about to float through the clouds into heaven. Wow.
“This year’s apples are gonna be extra red,” Kieran said.
I winced.
James continued. “Every time I check, there are more people who ought to have been declared dead but haven’t.”
I don’t know where James got the number, but ordinarily, he said, nineteen Australians die every hour. So, if it was a quirk, it was a big quirk.
“We’re talking about more than fifty people who’ve been affected so far,” James said.
“It’ll average out,” Kieran said. “Just give it time.”
James considered this. “Regression to the mean? I don’t think so.”
I wasn’t sure what James was talking about. He’s one part brainiac, one part braggart. I assumed he meant this situation wouldn’t fix itself. Nor would James want it to. But if no one in the whole country was dying, did that mean everyone in Australia was worthy of heaven?
“Are these people able to move?” I asked. “Can they talk?”
Kieran guffawed. “The only thing they’d be saying is, ‘Call a mortician’.”
Then Ellie arrived, humming to herself as usual. Some kids sing like they think life is one continuous audition for The Voice, but Ellie doesn’t even realize she’s doing it. She moved from Melbourne to Sydney a few months ago. She’s got blue-tinted dreadlocks that drape down her back like coarse rope, and she wears Doc Martens that she repaints each week. One week they’ve got flowers on them, the next it’s green aliens inside UFOs. This week it was foot bones, except that the left foot was painted on the right boot and the right foot was on the left boot.
On Ellie’s first day at our school, the principal asked Alessia Pang to show her around, but I guess Alessia decided Ellie’s hair was gangrenous because she ditched Ellie after ten minutes. That’s when Ellie joined James, Kieran, and me. Probably she spotted James. Girls are always spotting James and his expertly ironed pastel shirts. She just walked over to our spot under the camphor laurel, looked up at the tree, inhaled, said it was beautiful and sat down. She’s been sitting with us ever since.
Ellie dropped her bags on the last note of whatever she was humming and plonked down beside James, who instantly asked what she thought about nobody dying.
“I reckon it’s something Ms. Bellinger planted,” she said to me, “to make our obituary assignments seem more real.”
That made sense. “A hoax?”
Kieran kicked James. “Told ya.”
James wasn’t convinced. He never is.
The bell rang. Kieran left us to sidle up between Sienna Cartwright and Caitlin Daraban. Ellie and James strolled to Chemistry. And I turned to my phone before surrendering it for the school day. Instagram and TikTok were in a frenzy, but mostly people were posting to say everyone else was posting about Bilpin like crazy. Every post said the He or She or It who had brought famine and locusts and war and disease for millennia had taken mercy on people. Blessed mercy. People who had believed in God all along were taking credit, saying stuff like they knew “God would not forsake His creations”.
Even people who weren’t religious were excited, like they’d scammed God, which is sort of how I felt. I’ve never hurled Banksia cones at squawky mynah birds or ignited paper bags of poo on people’s porches, and I’ve never stabbed someone with anything bigger than a paperclip. But—and I’m not proud of it—when our school’s Bully-in-Chief, Jason Bligh, fell while joyriding on top of a train carriage and never returned to classes, I didn’t bake a cake or sell raffle tickets to raise money for his rehab. And no one in our house had attended church in years, even at Easter when Grandpa Tom and Grandma Lillian invited us. So our house wasn’t exactly guaranteed a puffy white cloud with a premium Netflix plan.
I handed over my phone and watched it being added to the school graveyard, wondering, as I did every day, whether it would be there when I returned.
In the contemplative novel Unsilent Heart, Nick’s life goes from complicated to off-the-rails baffling when fellow Australians simply…stop dying.
At first, he’s happy his grandpa will live forever, rather than succumbing to liver cancer, but when he realizes the undying are actually suffering, Nick is drawn to do something for the "lost dead."
Nick’s a relatable, thoughtful teenager. He faces the issue of non-death and his consequent worry with wry humour while still maintaining friendships, going to school, and playing field hockey. One thing he can’t seem to face is writing his own obituary for a class assignment, but who can blame him?
A fascinating and creative aspect of Unsilent Heart is the chronicling of reactions to Australia's non-death epidemic by theologians, world leaders, and everyone in between, as seen through Nick’s perspective. He routinely gets updates on the situation by checking social media with his friends and watching television news with his parents.
Some of the television theologians ask, is Australia a second Garden of Eden? Subsequently, the novel explores how turning to biblical texts for explanation is a natural human reaction, while panic-hoarding items from the grocery store is another. It highlights the contrast between religious rapturous certainty versus the self-preservation instinct.
When Nick finds his neighbour Stuart Mayall, or Morty, actually dead, Nick and friends work together, taking chances to get answers. Why was Morty the last of the dead? What are all the annotated books he left behind in his home trying to say?
Unsilent Heart is not just a story about a boy’s struggles with school, bullies, and young love but an important study of the bigger picture. When no one can die but the dead are viewed as “lost”, existential dread takes a leap into uncharted territory and lands in human suffering.
But that’s not what’s at the heart of the story.
With hearts endlessly beating in Australia, one young man touches the reader’s sensibilities, leaving us with lessons on love, life, and cheating death.