The Silence in Between
By Josie Ferguson
It’s time for another Debut of the Month! And this time, with their now well-established zeal for uncovering new voices, our debut pickers bring you The Silence in Between – a powerful, enthralling and beautiful tale of family, travesty and separation set against the terrors of the Berlin Wall.
Where debut novels are concerned, historical fiction might be the toughest place to start. You have to establish a distinctive voice while making sure that you know your area inside out, that your research is meticulous, and that you’re not retreading overly familiar ground. Josie Ferguson has done a stellar job on all fronts. …and it’s worth noting here that she believes books about the past can change the future, and that she intends to write many of them. Fortunately, she’s off to a cracking start.
There are hundreds and thousands of ways in which one might become separated from one’s family, one’s loved ones. It’s hard to imagine that global and national political events might one day erect a literal wall between you and the most important person in the world to you. But. It’s August 1961, the city is Berlin and this is exactly what has happened to Lisette.
Just the night before, Lisette had been with her newborn son in the hospital. As reluctant as she had been to leave, she was assured that it was safe for her to go home and to get some sleep: that everything would be fine in the morning. But she awakes to find that far from being fine, everything has changed. Madness has taken the streets. Gunfire and screams pervade the air. The city, and her world, has been cut in two. The border between West and East Berlin has been closed and is being manned by armed guards instructed to shoot anyone trying to make it through.
Lisette and her teenage daughter Elly are trapped in the East while baby Axel is alone in the West. Despite the passion for music that they share, and the peculiar way they both conenct to other people, Ella and Lisette are not close. Though it’s hard to say why or what, something prevents a real connection. Elly thinks there must be something she can do… and soon she’s hatched a plan to escape East Berlin and reconnect her family – physically and emotionally.
Switching between the 1961 present and World War Two – during which we learn of Lisette’s relationship with her own mother – The Silence in Between recounts the horrors of two of the last century’s gravest horrors through the eyes of two women who must summon more resilience than they thought possible to keep themselves alive and their family together. It is a book about enormous upheaval but, just as much, it’s also a book in which mother-daughter relationships are highlighted with heartbreaking brilliance.
Haunting and compassionate in equal measure, The Silence in Between is an immersive exploration of the monstrousness, music and motherhood at the heart of humanity.