Book Title: Fountains of Silence
Author: Ruta Sepetys
“Truth breaks the chains of silence.” Ruta Sepetys’ fourth novel Fountains of Silence is a historical fiction novel told through the eyes of eighteen-year-old Daniel Matheson. Daniel is an aspiring photojournalist traveling to Madrid with his oil tycoon father and native Spaniard mother in the summer of 1957. During this time period, Spain was under the rule of Spanish military dictator Francisco Franco. Upon Daniel’s arrival, Franco’s Nationalist regime had recently overthrown the democratically elected Second Republic years prior. Anyone who opposed this new form of government was killed.
This included the parents of Ana Torres Moreno, who is a maid at the hotel Daniel is staying at. Daniel uses his camera to capture the horrors and unspeakable cruelty that he witnesses through his lenses. Being a native Texan, he isn’t sure what to expect in Spain, but soon realizes with the help of Ana, that many secrets are lurking beneath the surface of the seemingly sunny cosmopolitan city. The population is still recovering from the effects of the Spanish Civil War and there is great economic hardship and deprivation of food and shelter that has not been addressed by the newly communist government. People who speak out against the government mysteriously disappear, so the nation prides itself on being quiet. Many believe, “silence has a voice of its own.” Nobody speaks of the past. If they do it might result in punishment.
However, nobody sees this side of Madrid from where Daniel is staying, surrounded by US diplomats who have no idea what the real Madrid is like. “Some people were desperate to remember and others were desperate to forget,” Sepetys wrote. Franco wanted tourists to come to the wealthiest part of Madrid and believe the illusion that Spain was a prosperous, rich country, while that was so far from the truth. Daniel goes to Ana’s hometown of Vallecas, just outside the city lines, and he experiences what life was like for the majority of Spanish citizens in the 1950s. Daniel takes a big risk when he snaps photos of the hardship in Vallecas and plans on spreading awareness with them when he returns to Texas. There was heavy censorship of the media in Spain. “Sometimes the truth is dangerous… But we should search for it nonetheless,” recalled Sepetys.
Sepetys does a great job of stepping into the role of an American teenager, seeing struggles so unlike and foreign to his current life. She is the daughter of a Lithuanian immigrant and is passionate about the power of history to ensure that we never forget what others experienced. The New York Times Book Review has said, “Ruta Sepetys acts as champion of the interstitial people so often ignored—whole populations lost in the cracks of history.” The book had an enticing plot, while still conveying a lot of history and information that is unknown to many about the Spanish Civil War, and what life was like in Spain not so long ago. Fountains of Silence has many diverse themes and spreads the true meaning that things are not always what they seem. Fountains of Silence has received praise from The Wall Street Journal, Booklist, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, and more. The New York Times Book Review proclaimed, “Fountains of Silence speaks truth to power, persuading future rulers to avoid repeating the crimes of the past.” This young adult novel would be a good read for anyone interested in historical fiction or learning about other cultures.
