Exile Music: The Sound of Silence, a Journey from Vienna to Bolivia

Jun 25, 2020 by Two Sues On the Aisle

By Sue Weston and David Dobkin

Exile Music, a novel by Jennifer Steil (Viking, available on Amazon), is a work of historical fiction that chronicles a child’s journey from refined Vienna to rural La Paz. 

Jennifer Steil, offers a seldom explored perspective of the holocaust.  Our journey follows a young Jewish girl from Vienna, Austria, to La Paz, Bolivia, a distance of 7,000 miles but worlds apart. Orly, the daughter of a well-renowned opera singer, was raised in Vienna surrounded by music. Her ears were attuned to the subtle strains of classical music, but ignorant to the increasing dissonance as Nazis occupied Europe forcing Jews into exile. Her parents prioritized music over religion and politics.  They believed, ‘As long as we do our best in this life, we have nothing to worry about’. Forced to face reality when their colleagues turned against them prepared to flee, separating Orly from her best friend, Annelise. The girls had created their own world called Friedengluckhasenland, “a country surrounded by stone walls and when invaders try to get in the wind just blows their hands off the doorknob.”  Peace, Happiness, and Rabbits, combined together.

Exile Music is organized into musical segments beginning with the overture which introduces Orly and Ana. Their undying friendship ‘has always existed’ and will endure time. The Sixth Movement ‘After the War’ is the finale. It shows how connections between people, objects, ideas, and places that appear to have nothing in common can coexist. Each movement has a different tempo that reflects the urgency.  

Steil uses short chapters punctuated by headlines in the first movement to provide perspective of the rapidly escalating tensions in Vienna. The pace slows in the Third Movement, La Paz, as Orly adjusts to life in Bolivia. The novel explores cultural norms and bias, as the European refugees adjust to the inhospitable climate of their new country. They long for the greatness of Vienna. Wishing to return to their old lives, forgetting the hardships they faced escaping and the hatred they left behind. Exile Music explores the human psyche’s ability to find justification and comfort in the past, and the desire to return to normalcy. 

The book echoes the confusion of Jewish leaders in Austria who found that despite their loyalty and nationalism, ‘Austria was not as loyal to us as we had been to it’. Orly’s father, who fought bravely during the Great War, and contributed to society in Vienna by playing viola in the symphony was shocked to be rejected along with the city’s doctors, lawyers, bankers and artists. Jewish businesses were closed and their property confiscated. Even Orly’s home, where her mother was born, was taken by their neighbors. Ana’s parents threatened ‘Do you know, Jew, that if I denounce you, you are going straight to the camp?’ The gravity of the incomprehensible situation was more poignant as Orly recognized how greed and power turned her neighbors into enemies.  Jews had become the subject of national hate and loathing.  The country they loved rejected them, denying their rights. It makes one wonder could this happen again? 

But Ana pledges ‘Orly, I will say this one more time and hope you believe me. What I am, you are. What you are, I am. Promise me you believe me?’ Ana remains her guiding star.  The ability to  accept individual differences enables Orly to adjust to life in La Paz. 

Exile Music starts fast and strong. The first movement encapsulates life in and expulsion from Vienna. Steil weaves in global politics to show its influence as society decays. She adds a short chapter, Caesura to itemize atrocities to which the world turned a deaf ear; ‘November 23, 1938, when the Nazis reminded the world that the Jews would be wiped out if no one evacuated them.’ 

Steil overloads the story, using the setting, La Paz to create additional tension for the Jewish escapees, with Nazi exiles also settling there.  This allows us to question whether there is an ethical responsibility to create a safe haven for Jewish refugees. 

The complexities and casualties of war are too numerous to count.  They include Orly’s brother who participated in the Resistance instead of fleeing to La Paz and the endless perils faced by escapees.  We grieve at the survivor’s inability to adjust to loss, filling Bolivia with death and desperation, causing Orly’s mother to lose joy becoming unable to sing. I found the brief, but graphic details of Orly’s tryst with Ana disturbing, and discordant with the tone of the novel, although it reinforced their desperate need to connect.

Jennifer Steil, an American born author, and journalist, her first book was a memoir about her tenure as the editor-in-chief of the Yemen Observer. Exile Music though fiction reflects her extensive travel, showing the culture and flavor of Bolivia and Vienna, through descriptions and language. 

With the country divided by differences, Steil gives us a way to find solace.  She shows how pointless hatred can lead to devastation.  But how adding love and understanding can lead to peace, understanding, and music.

***

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