The Falling Silence: The Art of Conversation and Healing in the First Novel by Taschetta and Trossero

“I’m afraid of being closed off in my words… voiceless, mute,” says Anastasia, one of the protagonists of The Silence That Falls (Potencia Editora), the first novel by authors Adriana Taschetta and Elida Trossero, as a synthesis of a plot that delves into what is said and what is not said.

Taschetta (72) – pedagogue, writer of short stories and oral narrator – and Trossero (65) – reading and creative writing facilitator – are old friends passionate about literature, theatre, letters and the art of conversation that they wrote “four hands” this story that pushes introspection.

It is a collective production thought out word by word, in total consensus among the creators who experienced a personal transformation during the process, which took place online during the pandemic and which today they describe as “magical.”

The book navigates the feelings of women from different generations of a Córdoba family, with migrant ancestors.

The Falling Silence is encouraged to raise deep themes embodied in female voices: the right to a dignified death, guilt, the body, illness and the inherited pain of what is left silent in the course of family life. “Will we be able to face the most horrible memories to heal?” is one of the questions that haunt the story that brings together the passing and sorrow of several generations.

network of voices

“We are observers of reality. We are message divers; not only what was said, but what was not said,” describes Elida Trossero. From that action, the narrative is woven that goes and returns from Córdoba, Argentina, to Russia, at the beginning of the 20th century. The stories are formed as a network of first-person voices, thoughts and emotions of women who try to inhabit themselves and transcend mandates.

“It is important that each person speaks in the first person because it supports this worldview, which we have learned in this time, which says that we are different drops, but we are the same sea. We have all been through similar places as women,” Elida thinks.

Taschetta details the journey of exploration of her personal universes, books, documentaries and family experiences to give life to Anastasia who wants a dignified death and who fears being left without a voice.

“To link them with this story that seemed exciting to us, we were united by being descendants of people who came from the other continent and who did not tell us their story, who did not tell us,” says Trossero.

The novel tells the story of four generations, where life is exposed with rawness and nuances in rituals, talks, consensuses and dissents marked by different historical moments.

Elida explains that in the families in the story, as in real life, there is “unconscious genetics” that leads to repeating certain stories or gestures that are detected from ancestors.

Recreate reality

The background of the novel is the word that, in Trossero’s words, “is healing because it allows reality to be reformulated, recreated, and given new meanings.”

Precisely that called them to write.

“During the pandemic we were living alone, each one isolated in her home. We met every day virtually. We cried, we laughed, we fought, but the most shocking thing is that we wrote together word for word. If someone didn’t like it, she wouldn’t take it, they would look for a third option,” says Adriana.

Everything was thought of in common. “That is the great learning, negotiating the word, giving up the ego without sacrificing it, listening to the other,” Trossero emphasizes. “At some point we thought that we had deconstructed and rebuilt ourselves, we came out stronger from this negotiation of the word. We are others,” he thinks.

In this artisanal and dialogued way, a rhythmic story began to be woven in which the characters acquired a life of their own, outside of what was planned, in five stories that are linked to each other.

One is that of the Russian great-grandmother Zoya, who due to life circumstances decrees herself silent, mute, without imagining the consequences it would spill on the family tree. The others are that of her daughter Anastasia, who is over 80 years old; that of her daughters and granddaughters, all with different profiles and ideologies.

The succession of events from one generation to another is as vivid as it is fantastic; always taking care of the “ancestral women” who are part of the authors’ lives. “The novel seeks feminine self-knowledge,” suggests Trossero.

Zoya was built with images that Adriana captured on a trip to the former USSR, in addition to readings about the 1917 Revolution and the history of revolutionary women.

Camila, one of the granddaughters and the main protagonist of the novel, is the intergenerational bridge, the one who relies on dialogue and, once again, on words. She is the one who puts a point of light and who opens the doors to a new conception of the world, of love, of death.

“The characters have consistency, they have no cracks. They evolve, and we with them. It is impossible not to write what we are made of, what we know, which is our own history, our essence,” says Elida.

The text incorporates portions of real life that could be good fictions, such as that of the Virgen de las Mercedes from Adriana’s family, which her maternal grandmother from Coronda, Entre Ríos, once told her. The woman had 11 children and as an inheritance from her ancestors she received an image of that dedication to the Virgin that an uncle and general of the Urquiza army had found.

“When they were retreating after the battle of Caseros, he found that image that is still in my family, in a little hole in a tree. It is made of wood carved by the Indians, dark-skinned, black hair. “It has the Mercedarian shield,” she says. And he continues: “One of my grandmother’s children had meningitis, and she promised the Virgin that, if she was saved from it, all of her grandchildren would be called ‘de las Mercedes’. And all of us cousins ​​are ‘from the Mercedes’, women and men. “The Virgin is still in the family.”

As expected, in the novel, Catalina – Anastasia’s daughter – is “from the Mercedes”.

2023-12-23 19:38:56
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