The Quiet Sound of Disappearing

Book excerpt: Feather Harrington sits on an airplane with a pound of cocaine taped to her body. The Quiet Sound of Disappearing by Ryan Rayston is a tense, gritty, unorthodox, bizarrely funny, fictionalized story of one woman's descent into drugs and dealing, her arrest, and her daring struggle to find her way back. This engrossing account of the hedonistic drug culture of the early eighties provides humorous and searing testimony to the literal trials and tribulations of that time. She bottoms out in a pivotal moment that leads her to try-and fail-rehab. After getting sober on her own, Feather is arrested and indicted as a co-conspirator in a large DC drug scandal. Shockingly brave and honest, this gorgeously written, stream of consciousness novel gets at the gritty heart of what it is like to battle a disease and carry a shameful secret. The Quiet Sound of Disappearing is an emotional rollercoaster about love, loss, need, and managing to survive the unsurvivable.