Primero llega el silencio

This is a story about mothers and daughters, about absences, about inherited traumas, and about the need to speak up when silence wears us down. Dora works from home, lives alone, and tries to keep afloat an increasingly fragile relationship with her teenage daughter. Standing between them is the shadow of a family history filled with men who vanish and women who have learned to live without making a sound -- and to remain silent about everything. While attempting to piece together her love life -- amidst the exhaustion of daily routine and constant misunderstandings with her own mother -- Dora confronts a disquieting question: To what extent are we doomed to bear the burden of the mistakes made by those who came before us? Through the experiences of three generations of women, Ioana Maria Stăncescu crafts an intimate and vibrant novel -- brimming with dark humor and biting wit -- about the difficulty of communication, the weight of what remains unspoken, and the possibility -- always tempting -- of breaking the cycle of what our families impose upon us, unchosen. A woman trying to start anew. A daughter beginning to drift away. A mother with whom every conversation ends in a fight. A family saga charged with irony, reminiscent of Siri Hustvedt's *The Summer Without Men*. A novel about the female gaze, motherhood, and everything that love cannot repair.