I'm looking predominantly for nonfiction, but interesting novels would be great too. I'm curious to read about cases/analysis of culturally enforced silences, deliberate forgetting, etc. I've come across the theme in reading about the holocaust (reading Language and Silence by George Steiner at the moment), Carroll's Constantine's Sword (about the Catholic Church's history regarding antisemitism), David W. Blight's Race and Reunion (situated after the US Civil War), and many others.
I was raised in rural TX, and got in trouble in high school for even asking about sundowns towns and our area's history regarding segregation and related issues. And I was shushed for that by the teacher in Texas history class. The experience has always stuck with me, so I'm looking for books that explore the theme. Of cultures just up and deciding that "we don't talk about that," of it being gauche and rude to bring up something from the past, of people acting like no one knows what in actuality everyone does know, and so on.
by mhornberger