The Security of Silence

About the Book

The first novel of the trilogy portrays the lives of Emilie and Friederich Malin originating in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in southwestern Germany. Emilie came from an upper middle Class family whose father was a newspaper owner/publisher. Tragically, she lost her father when she was 13 years of age and never quite got over the loss. She met an older man who was not only a prosperous businessman, but one whose family, her mother said, was from the lowest class in town. She ignored her mother's advice and married him. He became a father surrogate for her. She had everything she wanted. Her comfortable life style continued even though she discovered her husband had an unsavory appetite for women. She attributed his difficulty in relating to other persons because of a war wound as a soldier in the German army in World War I. He had lost his ability to speak in a normal tone of voice due to the incompetence of the field surgeon who cut the nerves to his vocal cords. He could only whisper and subsequently, Emilie became his interpreter with the customers for his business. He resented this dependence upon her and decided it would be best to emigrate to America as the rest of his family had done. Emilie did not want to leave Germany, but she felt herself trapped in a marriage from which she believed she could not escape. She was afraid of her husband's anger and felt, for the sake of their children, she would have to remain silent.

THE SECURITY OF SILENCE begins in the late nineteenth century and continues through the early decades of the twentieth century. It is the story of Emilie Elizabeth Louise Bartholomae who was born and grew up in a small, southern German Village. Her childhood was idyllic until the death of her father changes the family circumstances of privilege and economic security to uncertainty and fear for the future. The onset of the World War I and its tragic aftermath for both the country and the Bartholomae family makes Emilie feel uncertain and threatened by the on rush of events and circumstances over which she feels she has little or no control. She marries a man many years her senior whom she believes can provide security for her and her family. Even though her mother warns her about the history of her husband’s family she dismisses these comments. She soon discovers, however, her husband has the tendencies of a sexual predator. She remains silent and, thereby denies the reality of his behavior. She believes it is the result of his wound from the war.

While Emilie and her growing family are well off by local standards because of her husband’s successful business, she refuses to recognize his sexual proclivity. Having been schooled in the culture of accepting whatever the husband decides, she remains silent. Economic security becomes the trade-off for her silence against her husband’s conduct which she knows is wrong. What seems like an unconscious decision on her part to avoid any threat to her or her family, by ignoring her subconscious suspicions, she actually supports his unsavory behavior.

The novel traces the transition of a woman from a relatively high social status, with a good education and profession, to the uncertainty of a marriage to a man whom she believes will provide her with the same style of life to which she had become accustomed as a little girl. Little does she realize the impact the social differences between her and her husband’s family have upon their common future. Unbeknownst to her, the security of silence becomes the “leitmotif” of her entire life.

About the Author

Donald F. Megnin, son of immigrants from Germany, grew up on a farm near Chittenango, New York. He graduated from Fayetteville High School, Syracuse University, where he received his A.B., M.A., and Ph. D. and Boston University with an S.T.B. He worked on the family for several years before being given a scholarship by a Syracuse Industrialist to study at Syracuse University. He then represented Syracuse University as Lecture at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand for two years. He then went on to study theology at Boston University. While serving as a United Methodist Minister in Syracuse, New York, he began his graduate studies in international politics in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs part time. After completing his doctorate in political science, he taught at Slippery Rock University (one of fourteen state-owned universities of Pennsylvania. He is currently a professor emeritus of international politics from Slippery Rock University and divides his time between New Smyrna Beach, Florida where he and his wife reside, and Syracuse, New York where they spend their summers.