Meg Wingerter started writing her recently released first novel, “The Silence that Remains,” right out of college. Eight years, five jobs, four states, one pandemic later, she finished this powerful work of historical fiction set in Stalin’s early 20th-century Russia — though it also has resonance today. She covers health for The Denver Post. She lives in the Denver area with her husband Justin and daughter Claire.
SunLit: Tell us this book’s backstory – what’s it about and what inspired you to write it?
Meg Wingerter: It actually started with a dream that involved two people who would become primary characters. I could tell, from the cement-block architecture and ’40s-esque clothes, that they were somewhere behind the Iron Curtain.
Initially, I started to write their story in a way that wasn’t rooted in any particular place, a la “1984,” but I didn’t like the way it was flowing. So that was the beginning of years of research to try to understand how people lived and thought in the early Soviet era. It was a lengthy process, which I think ultimately helped. I understood a lot more about life when I finished it at 35 than when I started it at 23.
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SunLit: Place the excerpt you selected in context. How does it fit into the book as a whole and why did you select it?
Wingerter: I shared the beginning. As the song says, “A very good place to start.”
SunLit: What influences and/or experiences informed the project before you sat down to write?
Wingerter: There are so many nonfiction writers I should thank for their insights into the period. But my biggest influences were probably Svetlana Alexeievich (a Belarusian writer who compiled gripping social histories) and Janusz Bardach, who wrote a two-part memoir of his time in a labor camp and the years immediately after his release. There’s nothing that helps ground a story like drawing on the voices of real people.
SunLit: What did the process of writing this book add to your knowledge and understanding of your craft and/or the subject matter?
Wingerter: I certainly know more about Russian history than I did before! And the story forced me to practice conveying emotions as subtly as possible, since people living under a totalitarian dictatorship didn’t exactly go around telling everyone what they were thinking and feeling.
“The Silence that Remains”
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SunLit: What were the biggest challenges you faced in writing this book?
Wingerter: I originally wrote it from four perspectives. The final version involved two, plus some documents left by a third person. It feels terrible to take away your characters’ chapters!
SunLit: What do you want readers to take from this book?
Wingerter: I remember attending a Margaret Atwood lecture in college, where she talked about exploring what it would take to uproot everything that’s human from someone. This book is my clumsy way of considering the same idea.
The totalitarian states of the early 20th century certainly gave it as good a try as anyone, even if that wasn’t their stated goal. And yet, they generally didn’t succeed. People made moral compromises, often terrible ones, but at least some of them found ways to hold onto the loved ones and beliefs that mattered most to them.
In that way, I’d say it’s a hopeful book, which sounds odd given the amount of violence in it.
SunLit: How did current events in Russia and Ukraine influence the book?
Wingerter: In the original version I wrote in my early 20s, Ukraine didn’t have a significant presence in the story. As I was revising, I realized one of my characters needed to feel like an outsider in the Russian-dominated Soviet Union, but also be someone who could move through it without arousing suspicion. (If you were a Volga German or Crimean Tatar who somehow managed to escape being deported to Siberia, you’d spend your whole life under a level of scrutiny that was unbearable even by Soviet standards.)
The Russian majority generally saw Ukrainians as “little brothers”: not necessarily suspicious, as long as they didn’t attempt to assert any sense of having their own culture. So I had already written that character with a tension between her sense of nationality and how she has to present herself in the world. When Russia invaded, it showed how some things haven’t changed in spite of everything that has over the past 80 years.
SunLit: Tell us about your next project.
Wingerter: I have about a dozen ideas. But I also have a toddler, so I haven’t gotten far on any of them.
A few more quick items
Currently on your nightstand for recreational reading: “Wolf Hall,” by Hilary Mantel. I’m trying to read all the books I bought at some point, but never got to, before letting myself buy any more.
First book you remember really making an impression on you as a kid: “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.” I didn’t catch the Biblical inspiration, so I thought Aslan was going to stay dead. I remember being unable to focus on the science lesson after the recess when I read the death chapter, and overjoyed when he returned.
Best writing advice you’ve ever received: Get out of the way of the story. No one’s that interested in how clever you can be.
Favorite fictional literary character: Jane Eyre. There’s something powerful about a young woman of little social standing deciding she cares enough about herself to stick by her principles.
Literary guilty pleasure (title or genre): “Phantom,” by Susan Kay. My teenage self hadn’t quite realized just how problematic some of the Phantom of the Opera’s behavior is. My adult self knows better, but still likes to indulge once in a while.
Digital, print or audio – favorite medium to consume literature: Print. I just can’t relax when reading from a screen.
One book you’ve read multiple times: “The Gargoyle,” by Andrew Davidson. The contrast of the hyper-realistic experience of life in a burn unit and the dream-like stories the narrator’s lover tells him is gripping. I wish Davidson would write another book.
Other than writing utensils, one thing you must have within reach when you write: Maybe a cup of tea? I try not to get too picky about when and where I write.
Best antidote for writer’s block: Taking the pressure to produce off for a while. I sometimes need to just play around with the characters in my head to remember why I wanted to tell the story in the first place.
Most valuable beta reader: My husband Justin