Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe
Published 2018 · 544 pages · 120,000 words · about 8 hours at an average pace · History, Mystery & Crime, Nonfiction
How hard is Say Nothing to read?
Say Nothing scores 24 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 30 out of 100
- Irish political terminology. Otherwise clear journalistic prose.
- Sentence structure: 30 out of 100
- Abstraction: 30 out of 100
- Concrete reporting with themes emerging from narrative.
- Information density: 52 out of 100
- Dense with political history, personal biography, and investigative detail.
- Narrative indirection: 25 out of 100
- Revelations reframe earlier events. Thriller-like structure.
- Symbolic density: 20 out of 100
- Silence itself functions as a symbol. Jean McConville's fate represents thousands.
- Ironic distance: 20 out of 100
- Keefe lets contradictions speak. Adams's denials create sustained dramatic irony.
- Resolution withholding: 20 out of 100
- Some mysteries remain unsolved. The Troubles' legacy is unresolved.
- Structural complexity: 30 out of 100
- Non-linear narrative that shifts between timelines and perspectives.
How Say Nothing is regarded
Say Nothing holds a literary regard score of 51 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.