In the 1860s and 70s the so-called Molly Maguire assassinations rocked Pennsylvania’s anthracite region and made national headlines. A Vague Dread Seems to Silence the Tongue attempts to conjure the specter of violence that emerged out of the racial animus and labor struggles of the Civil War in the present day, setting the bloody events of the late 19th century against the contemporary landscape of a fading coal economy.