The Silence in Between by Josie Ferguson (Transworld)
Next from the Debut Fiction list for me was The Silence in Between and again on paper just the type of book I adore:
The Silence in Between is a historical novel based in Berlin in 1961 and during the Second World War. Lisette lives in East Berlin but brings her new-born baby to a hospital in West Berlin.
Under doctor's orders, she goes home to rest, leaving the baby in the care of the hospital. But overnight the border between East and West closes, slicing the city - and the world - in two. With a city in chaos and armed guards ordered to shoot anyone who tries to cross, her situation is desperate.
Lisette's teenage daughter, Elly, has always struggled to understand the distance between herself and her mother. Both live for music but while Elly hears notes surrounding every person she meets, for her mother - once a talented pianist - the world has gone silent. Perhaps Elly can do something to bridge the gap between them. What begins as the flicker of an idea turns into a daring plan to escape East Berlin, find her baby brother, and bring him home....
This is the 3rd book I've read this year that is set all or partially in East Berlin during the Cold War and all of them have been absolutely brilliant - with this one sneaking ahead by a whisker.
As the author says in the end notes so much of this book seems to be too far fetched to have any historical basis where as the opposite is actually the case - and Ferguson makes the facts from history books and documentaries come to life in an incredibly visceral way.
Some of the book makes for very hard reading but from page one I was hooked and I can definitely see this one being on my 'best of' lists at the end of the year.
(The overall winner of the prize was announced as I was reading this one and I was genuinely upset that the prize didn't go to Ferguson.)
