The Story That Cannot Be Told
Page 24
Romania’s government eventually became totalitarian, meaning it controlled most aspects of people’s lives. Propaganda was everywhere, so it was difficult to find information that wasn’t misleading, and all sources of media—like television, books, music, and movies—were strictly censored. The Securitate, the secret police, recruited half a million regular people to spy for them. These informers reported on their families, friends, classmates, and neighbors, making it very dangerous to speak your mind, no matter who was around. Anyone suspected of opposing Ceauşescu and his government faced serious repercussions: arrest, loss of employment, torture, or even death. People who had the power to convince others to turn against the regime—people such as writers, teachers, directors, and scientists—were frequent targets of the Securitate.
However, even during the hardest of times, Romanians persevered.
Uncles whispered jokes about Ceauşescu under their breath. Grandparents upheld their religious traditions in secret. At night, by the flicker of candles, parents and children recited poetry and sang songs and told stories that had long ago been banned.
In the 1980s, audiocassettes and videotapes, which were easily copied, flooded the Romanian black market with illegal music and movies. For the first time in decades, Romanians got an unfiltered look at the outside world, and it’s hard not to believe that this contributed somehow to the revolution of 1989.
The Story That Cannot Be Told is grounded in the true history of a real time and place, but most of the novel is fiction. Much like someone we know, I took the stories I’d collected—from my friends, through my research—and I retold them. In a very old, lovely book titled Roumanian Fairy Tales, for example, I discovered the folktale “Cunning Ileana.” However, if you go read the original story, it won’t look quite the same. As much as I adored clever Ileana herself, I wasn’t a fan of princesses marrying princes who’d treated them badly. And of course, everything is better with dragons.
Like Old Constanta said, though, in some ways all stories are true.
And mine are no exception.
Because many parts of this book—and perhaps not the ones you’d expect—came from the real lives of real people.
And at its heart is a little girl who, like Ileana, wanted all her life to be a writer.
Acknowledgments
Like all stories, the ones in this book were made possible only through the help of countless other people. At the heart of The Story That Cannot Be Told are three incredible Romanian women: Cristina Sologon, Ana Maria Fujimagari, and Cecilia Ioana. This novel is as much yours as mine, since without your friendship it never would have existed. Thank you for your countless hours of conversation, research, and remembering. Any historical or cultural inaccuracies that remain are entirely my own.
This book would never have found its true shape without my amazing editor, Reka Simonsen, who not only seems to know just the right words, but always says them in the kindest of ways. Thank you times a million to Yishai Seidman, my superhero agent, who championed Story from its earliest draft. I would be remiss not to mention the rest of my incredible team at Atheneum—Julia McCarthy, Justin Chanda, Clare McGlade, Michael McCartney, Tom Daly, and Lili Feinberg, just to name a few—and the talented artist Isabella Mazzanti, who brought Ileana to life with her stunning cover illustration.
Thank you also to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where I drafted this book as a graduate student. I am forever indebted to my friend and thesis director, Dr. Sarah Einstein, who believed in me and my writing from the beginning. Special gratitude is also due to several professors, peers, and friends who gave me thoughtful feedback on early drafts, including Dr. Kayla Wiggins, Sybil Baker, Jennifer Jones, and Bonné de Blas. I should also mention that this journey to publication would not have been the same without the support of my friends in Novel Nineteens, Class of 2K19, and JPST.
Thank you, Mom and Dad, for always reading to me when I was little and usually making it to the end of the story. You took my writing seriously even when it was still mostly pictures or typed entirely in green Comic Sans, and that love and support has shaped everything since.
And of course, thank you to my best friend and husband, Dustin Kramer, for being my first reader since we were sixteen years old and never thinking twice about helping me follow my dreams.
About the Author
J. Kasper Kramer is an author and English professor in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She has a master’s degree in creative writing and once upon a time lived in Japan, where she taught at an international school. When she’s not curled up with a book, she loves researching lost fairy tales, playing video games, and fostering kittens. Visit her at JKasperKramer.com.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2019 by Jessica Kasper Kramer
Jacket illustration copyright © 2019 by Isabella Mazzanti
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kramer, J. Kasper, author.
Title: The story that cannot be told / J. Kasper Kramer.
Description: First edition. | New York : Atheneum, [2019] | Summary: In Romania in 1989, when people who say or do the wrong thing disappear, ten-year-old aspiring writer Ileana copes with fear, hunger, and cruelty by writing new endings to stories, including her own.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018043167 (print) | LCCN 2018050428 (ebook)
ISBN 9781534430709 (eBook) | ISBN 9781534430686 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Romania—History—Revolution, 1989—Juvenile fiction. | CYAC: Romania—History—Revolution, 1989—Fiction. | Family life—Romania—Fiction. | Authorship—Fiction. | Dictatorship—Fiction. | Revolutions—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.K696 (ebook) | LCC PZ7.1.K696 Sto 2019 (print) | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018043167