The Songs We Hide
By Connie Hampton Connally
What we play for the world are
the songs that the world wants to hear from us. The music that shapes the soul
and reveals who we really are, those are The
Songs We Hide, lovingly written about by Connie Hampton Connally.
Evoking stunning emotions, this author conducts a
magnum opus of incredibly beautiful historical fiction. Her writing brings to
life the people of stark, brutal, 1951 Hungary. Katalin and Peter are young
adults and upon their shoulders they bear the brunt of post World War II, where
survival is made so much more difficult by the brutal regime suffocating
freedoms. As Katalin realizes, “during
the war she had held out hope, because some day the war would end. Now the war
was over, but what was there to hope for?”
Katalin
was singing a wonderful duet with vibrant Robert, ‘Caro Mio Ben’, ‘My Dear
Beloved’. Now the same notes pained her
to the core, as a loving single mother of her one year old daughter, whose
father had suddenly disappeared. The government and secret police made
terrifying disappearances common place. Robert hadn’t even known he was going
to be a father, and she had no idea which one of the too many horrifying places
he was held. That’s if he was still alive.
Peter’s
family had been rocked by the travesties of war, and then “The Collective” had confiscated
what little their hard work had been able to achieve. They lived under the
constant threat not only of starvation, but of their family’s separation and
loneliness. Peter and his brothers had lost their mother, and their weary
father had to try and carry on with his broken heart. Peter shyly sings his
songs quietly to the beloved horse who works with them on what’s left of their
beloved family farm. But they can’t make a living any longer on the farm alone.
Peter must go to work in the city, where he meets Katalin who is waiting, for
her beloved Robert. The lives of Katalin, Peter, and the people around them in
this story will deepen the reverberating drum beat of your heart.
The
author, Connie Hampton Connally, became interested in Hungary’s turbulent
history from her love of music. Through music she was inspired by the story of
Zoltán Kodály, a twentieth-century Hungarian composer who spread music in his
nation despite totalitarianism and two world wars. This author writes such
memorable turns to a phrase, and such noteworthy descriptions that range the
full spectrum of human emotions from despair through hope. In The Songs We Hide she’s composed a
stirring tribute to the incredible strength of people, in a brutal time
in Hungarian history, and the desperate need to create hope. As the crescendo
builds, the reader will wonder, and hope – Can people withstand, can they be
stronger than the hatred and betrayal surrounding them?
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