Tom Hale: The Weight of Names

A Novel of War, Silence, and Translation

Tom Hale: The Weight of Names

A Novel of War, Silence, and Translation
by William Ferrier Jr.

In a war built on lies, his only weapon is the truth—and even that can kill.

Madrid, 1937. The city burns from the inside out. Bombs fall, alliances shift, and every word is dangerous.
American linguist Tom Hale is sent to translate for a foreign tribunal, believing language can bridge chaos. But in a world where each sentence is a verdict and every signature seals a fate, he discovers that neutrality is a myth—and silence has its own cost.

As the war tightens its grip, Tom becomes witness to the quiet machinery of control: records rewritten, names erased, and truth traded like contraband. When his translations begin to determine who lives and who disappears, he must choose between obedience and conscience—between surviving history or confronting it.

Lyrical, haunting, and deeply human, Tom Hale: The Weight of Names is a story of moral reckoning and quiet resistance. It asks one unflinching question:

What happens when words stop saving lives and start taking them?

For readers of Anthony Doerr, Kristin Hannah, and Ian McEwan, this Pulitzer-worthy debut marks the beginning of The Interpreter Series—a sweeping literary saga about war, memory, and the impossible duty of bearing witness.