The Voice Beneath the Quince Tree: A Memoir of Growing Up in Communist Romania

by Maria-Cristina Necula

With the fall of the Berlin Wall, regimes behind the Iron Curtain crumbled peacefully, yet there was one collapse that brought about the sole bloody revolution in the Eastern Bloc, ending in the swift execution of one of the worst dictators of the time. On Christmas Day, 1989, Romania was forever liberated from the megalomaniac, oppressive, often deadly embrace of Nicolae Ceaușescu's 25-year reign. Stories of resilience, survival, tragedy, and attempts to flee the communist regime abound, exposing the harsh and sad realities of various former Eastern Bloc countries. But this is a different kind of story. Told from the perspective of a child who knows no other universe and sees her Bucharest home with eyes of wonder, this is a story of growing up in a world that, to this child, seems as infused with magic as it is brutal. In the midst of persecution she discovers the world of opera that becomes an oasis of resistance and hope for her and her mother while they wait for permission to leave Romania and reunite with the girl's father in New York. When she arrives in the U.S., the culture shock is immense, but the girl finds her own way through teenagehood in American public schools, even drawing on the vampire lore associated with her native country, while staying true to her dream of becoming an opera singer.

279 pages, Paperback

Published October 17, 2024

Reviews

[Emma Bach · Rating 5 out of 5]

In beautiful, evocative and luminous prose, the author tells her story of growing up in communist Romania from the point of view of a child who knows no other world and loves her Bucharest home. When her father defects, that world is turned inside out for the ten-year-old girl, and in the 2 and a half years that follow, she must learn to deal with the absence of her beloved parent, surveillance, scarcity, and a permanent undercurrent of terror. Her relationship with her mother grows strong as her mother tries her best to protect her from the terrifying reality and takes her to the opera. As the opera world turns into a haven of comfort, love, and defiance for both mother and daughter, the girl shapes her own identity to the music and the stories, and becomes emotionally attached to an opera star. Touching, tender, eye-opening, at once heartbreaking and humorous, this story will appeal to everyone who has endured persecution and separation from loved ones and found solace in an art form. It's an immigrant's story too--and the part about arriving in the U.S. and trying to adjust, even enlisting the help of the Dracula myth--proves enlightening and is infused with great humor. Disarmingly candid, captivating, cinematic, "The Voice Beneath the Quince Tree" will take you on an unforgettable literary, historical, and human journey.

[Cristina A. Bejan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinary!