Feed Them Silence raises important questions about consciousness, research ethics, corporate sponsorship, shrinking habitats, and the various ways we interact with our planetary companions, but it doesn’t suggest that there are many easy answers. It sets out to be a provocative tale, and it works.
A masterpiece of a novella ... Mandelo here weaves intricate queer appetite with a scathing, intimate exploration of the boundaries, possibilities, and failures of American academia ... Mandelo expertly braids the tangled relationships between Sean and Kate, Sean and Riya, scientist and subject, self and subject, science and nature. The parallels cut deep, the dissonance rings loud.
The work truly excels when Mandelo lets the reader wade through this interpretive murk ... Sentences throughout Feed Them Silence regularly nest these multiple sites of meaning within them. The tense dependency between every creature in the book simmers just beneath the text. And when the fractures begin finally to be perceived, it already feels too late.
Unsettling ... Mandelo deftly illustrates the disintegration of a marriage while addressing serious questions: can a profit-driven company ever truly fund conservation?
The novella presents an interesting "what-if" scenario wrapped within an ethical conundrum. This allows Mandelo to focus on the relationships between their characters and to push them in unsettling and challenging directions.
