“The Silence In Between” by Josie Ferguson

It has been a while since I read “The Silence in Between” but I realized that I have never reviewed it. I finished it in less than 2 days as it captivated me and became a page-turner. I remember seeing it in Rotterdam in one of the bookstores and it was the last copy left even though I had never heard of it before. It was worth a read.

“The Silence in Between” takes place in Berlin, right when the Berlin Wall is being built. Lisette takes her newborn son Axel to West Berlin to a hospital and leaves him there overnight for additional checks. As she wakes up in the morning in East Berlin, she realizes that she can not go back anymore to pick up her son since the wall came up last night. Together with her husband Julius, they try to storm the embassy and obtain the visa to cross to the West and get their son but since they are not the priority, the wait stretches for months. Until their older daughter Elly, who is saddened by her parents being devastated, decides to take matters into her own hands and cross the border illegally.

While we mostly follow the events in the book in the 1960s, we also get flashbacks to the 1940s and the last years of war in Berlin and how Lisette and her mother with dementia were getting by. Lisette, a talented young pianist at that time, did not fully understand the scale of the war wanting to just live her life and perform her music. Her mother was reluctant to leave Berlin and escape when the Soviet army was taking over so they stayed behind and survived despair, hunger, rape, and other war atrocities. I do not want to say too much to not give away the plot but it is complex and involves many traumas and emotions.

There is one quote that specifically stood out for me that Lisette noted about her life in Berlin at that time:

Evil demanded little of me – it merely asked me to remain silent, to do nothing. And I complied.

I also liked the writing style of the author. Here is a small sample:

***

“I laid my blanket over her knees and tucked it in tight. With no siblings and no close cousins to speak of, I had very little experience with younger children, and I found her embrace solidifying, calming…

I looked down at Krista. I couldn’t help but imagine a future child of my own – a beautiful girl with my eyes and Julius’ nose. A small human who would love me far more than I loved myself.”

***

I liked this book a lot. Although it is historical fiction, it depicts the story of many people during that time. Real people who suffered real traumas. And I think their stories need to be told.