Cascading Silence

The Price of Silence by Camilla Trinchieri is a tight and compelling drama about a family caught in the cross-hairs of justice and retribution, meted out both from within and without. Self-imposed punishment for past tragedy and threatened prosecution for a very real crime combine to create explosive levels of tension, misery, and grief. Using shifting narratives and places in time, Trinchieri has created a powerful, serious, and visceral exploration of what happens when good intentions go terribly awry, when guilt overcomes reason, and when the blank spaces left by silence fill up with supposition and suspicion.

The plot of this tautly-written novel revolves around a bereft wife and penitent wife, a well-meaning but tightly-wound husband, a dead daughter, and a son left in the dark as to why there are such empty spaces in the world inhabited by his family. A tragedy is set in motion with the sudden intrusion of a young Chinese woman into their lives: for the husband, the young woman who appears from nowhere is to be shunned and feared; to the wife, she is a portent of possibility and renewed joy; for the son, she is a manifestation of beauty and sexuality. When she is found dead, who is responsible?

Using vivid courtroom scenes intersecting with diverse narratives, flashbacks and remembrances, Trinchieri builds both the suspense and the sorrow to almost unbearable heights of experience: we want to jump into the book and shout “stop” before lives are destroyed. We want to beg forgiveness for past acts on the part of the players, we want to warn them against coming tragedy, we want to protect them from the onslaught of dominoes falling falling falling, one ill-conceived notion after another, one misguided effort after another, one lost connection after another. No matter where the jury comes out on the death of the young woman, there will be no absolution for anyone in the family until there is recognition by each one of past darkness, and a filling in of the blank spaces and the evacuated feelings with genuine sharing and reconciliation of memories. Only in such recognition and reconciliation can there be redemption, forgiveness, and finally, absolution. When the silence is filled with truth, the past can be set to rest, for the good of all.

Trinchieri is a fearless and honest writer. She has created in The Price of Silence the unique combination of a heartfelt thriller and a gripping morality play of very human proportions.