Sara Russel: And Now I Speak!

E adesso parlo (And Now I Speak)

Reflections by Sara Russel

This novel by Maria Teresa Liuzzo presents a bold condemnation of the code of silence, hypocrisy, and violence against women. The protagonist, Mary, lives through a collection of unique life experiences which resonate with the experience of women the world over. The uniqueness of the life experiences are entwined with the universality of female experience, encouraging readers to reflect on their experience in relation to the events recounted in the novel as well as to the status of women. Mary’s life is recounted in careful detail, beginning with early childhood, without holding back on the more traumatic details. In fact, the very title of the novel emphasizes the choice to speak precisely when silence is imposed, breaking the code of silence to articulate all that usually remains secret. Troubled from the very beginning, Mary’s life presents a series of obstacles that greatly challenge her emotional resilience as well as her physical well-being. She endures in equal measure the absence of love and affection and the excess of violence and threats. Nonetheless, the more her parents imprison her in their violent world ruled by fear, threats, toil, and pain, the more she finds freedom within the wide spaces of her creativity, traveling with her imagination beyond the confines of the walls of the home that hold her captive. In addition to the long series of abuses inflicted by her family of origin, the reader notes that in order to leave her first prison and her first set of persecutors, Mary contracts a marriage with a man who becomes her new persecutor, her marriage her new prison. She bravely leaves this marriage and faces new adventures and perils, and seeking out the best possible compromises when she comes up against the limited possibilities offered by the misogynist world that surrounds her. It is in her creativity that Mary finds her greatest resource, and as a writer, she cultivates new friendships and a degree of autonomy. Nonetheless, Mary remains a prisoner of her traumatic past, and her painful memories are a perpetual prison, a constant and poignant reminder to the novel’s readers that even unspoken acts of violence have enduring consequences.