The Bay of Silence

A new edition of the best-selling novel by Lisa St Aubin de Terán

It all appears innocent enough: a handsome couple in their thirties – she an actress, he a successful graphic designer – revisiting Sestri Levante on the Italian Riviera where they once spent their honeymoon. But it is not at all innocent. The couple have been driven here by paranoia – by a slow dread of what will happen to the two of them and to their daughters if anyone finds out about their baby Amadeo, whose identity, and even whose existence, is at the heart of the schizophrenic illness from which Rosalind has long suffered. Two people hiding the world from each other, Rosalind and William cannot escape the chilling truth that lies at the centre of Lisa St Aubin de Terán’s compelling novel.

The resort of Sestri Levante has twin, Janus-facing bays: one which Hans Christian Andersen called the Bay of Fairytales and another which the local people have long called the Bay of Silence. It is to the Bay of Silence that Rosalind now retraces her steps – to the spot where she first encountered the exotic golden stranger Angelo who was to play such a seductive and haunting role on her honeymoon and in her marriage. Both she and her husband independently try to make sense of the tragic events which have engulfed their lives. They each try to analyse the pressure placed on their marriage – which has allowed distressing events to be forgotten and self-delusion to herald the unthinkable.

In her fourth novel, Lisa St Aubin de Terán creates an atmosphere which is profoundly unsettling. She weaves an escalating story of tension and human drama, combining the depth of character analysis which was so admired in The Tiger, with a striking new sense of pace and menace.

Lisa St Aubin de Terán

Lisa St Aubin de Terán is the prize-winning author of 20 books, including novels, short stories and nonfiction. She is Anglo-Guyanese, and was born and brought up in London. Aged 16, she married an exiled Venezuelan freedom fighter and landowner. After two years travelling around Italy and France, she moved to the Venezuelan Andes, where she managed her husband’s semi-feudal sugar plantation for seven years. Much of her writing draws on that time and place. And time warps, rural communities, isolation and grace under pressure are still the dominant themes in both her life and work.

On the strength of Keepers of the House, she was chosen as a Best of British Young Novelist in 1982.

After leaving the Andean hacienda, she lived as a perpetual traveller for the next twenty years. Then, in 2004, she settled in north Mozambique, establishing the Teran Foundation to develop community tourism. She lived there until 2021, returning to London with a bag full of manuscripts, including her autobiography Better Broken Than New, and two new novels (soon to be published by Amaurea): The Hobby and Kafka Lodge.