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Product Description
In September 2007, Christine Ristaino was attacked in a store parking lot while her three- and five-year-old children watched. In All the Silent Spaces, Ristaino shares what it felt like to be an ordinary person confronted with an extraordinary event a woman trying to deal with acute trauma even as she went on with her everyday life, working at a university and parenting two children with her husband. She not only narrates how this event changed her but also tells how looking at the event through both the reactions of her community and her own sensibility allowed her to finally face two other violent episodes she had previously experienced. As new memories surfaced after the attack, it took everything in Ristaino's power to not let catastrophe unravel the precarious threads holding everything together.
Moving between the greater issues associated with violence and the personal voyage of overcoming grief, All the Silent Spaces is about letting go of what you think you know in order to rebuild.
READ CHAPTER 1
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Christine Ristaino is a professor at Emory University, where she teaches Italian literature, culture, and language classes. She has co-authored an academic publication entitled Lucrezia Marinella and the Querelle des Femmes in Seventeenth-Century Italy through Farleigh Dickinson Press as well as the first edition of a book series called The Italian Virtual Class, which teaches language through cultural acquisition. She currently teaches a creative writing-focused class on Italian memoir, as well as co-teaches a class comparing Italy and China through the medium of food (noodles in particular).
Ristaino is also an Atlanta author whose memoir, All the Silent Spaces, published in July 2019 by She Writes Press, confronts the topics of violence, identity, and discrimination. She writes and publishes articles, essays, OpEds, and non-fiction, and presents her work in various forums throughout the U.S. and abroad. In addition, Ristaino has published articles in the Guardian, Pacific Standard, the Washington Post, the Huffington Post, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on child advocacy, coping with violence, and topics around diversity.
Ristaino participates in efforts around social justice, education reform, and violence prevention. She is an award-winning advisor and teacher and has experience organizing powerful symposiums, seminars, conferences and events. She leads workshops on the topics of diversity, equity and inclusion, privilege, coming to terms with violence through memoir, writing and talking about difficult topics, and creating a public voice.
You may also contact Christine at Leadership Speakers Bureau to schedule her for speaking or leadership engagements.
AWARDS:
2020 Finalist for the Readers' Favorite Book Awards in Non-Fiction: Social Issues
2020 Living Now Book Awards, Gold Winner Inspirational Memoir
2020 International Book Awards, Finalist in Social Change
2020 IndieReader Discovery Awards Winner in Women's Issues
2019 Best Book Awards Finalist in Social Change
2019 Best Book Awards Finalist in Women's Issues
REVIEWS:
"An insightful, openhearted memoir about brutality in many forms."
Kirkus Reviews
"All the Silent Spaces is gorgeous, heart-wrenching, and brave. Ristaino's memoir invites readers to be present to suffering, to seek common purpose, and ultimately to heal our fractured world."
Marie Marquardt, author of Flight Season
"Christine Ristaino transverses complex landscapes of experience: racial and ethnic identities; family ties; the aftermath of violent crime. Her honest reflections remind us there are no easy answers, but that we must continue to ask the difficult questions. This moving memoir is a gift."
Dr. Leslie Harris, Professor of African American History and Co-Editor of Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies
"Throughout the process of reading All the Silent Spaces, I have felt validated in my most-shunned memories of sexual trauma. From her frank representation of the silent struggle for regaining ourselves, Christine Ristaino's vulnerability has given me solidarity and hope for community around this exiled discussion topic."
Halla Maynard, Survivor
Customer Reviews
5.0 Based on 14 Reviews
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EB
04/11/2024
Ebie B.
Beautifully written and inspiring
All the Silent Spaces, by Christine Ristaino, is a lovely, deep, and sometimes difficult journey through a brutal assault and the process of recovery from trauma. Ms. Ristaino was attacked and mugged in front of her young children as she was maneuvering her shopping cart over the curb in front of the store. The fact that her assailant was African American adds further complexity to this already layered story. This memoir invites us to accompany the author through her injuries and her emotions, through the reactions of her children and their lingering trauma, and into a variety of teaching opportunities about inequality and racism that arose following the assault. Through these many and varied experiences, Ms. Ristaino opens a window to conversations about race and how it divides us. She invites us to talk about the things we feel and believe and think but don't dare say aloud. She asks us to challenge our own assumptions and place our individual experiences into a broader context and look at them differently.
JD
04/11/2024
Jennifer D.
Worthwhile!
Christine Ristainoās memoir, All the Silent Spaces beautifully combines vignettes of narrative with thought-provoking questions about our cultural obsession with violence. In a series of recollections she calls āretrogrades,ā she unflinchingly tells the story of her own experience with trauma and asks readers to consider hard questions about race, white privilege, parenthood, and women's self-advocacy. Connecting the past and present through short excerpts, Ristaino offers us insights from her own childhood, young adulthood and teaching experiences. Gently, she asks readers to question our roles in maintaining cultural truths. As the story of her trauma unfolds, she asks readers to consider the role of storytelling as a way to heal and move forward--smarter, wiser and more aware of the impact we all have on one another.
BA
04/11/2024
Beverly A. Willett
Brave, Authentic, and Thought-Provoking
Too often, when catastrophe strikes, we resort to formulaic explanations and allow fear to shrink our world rather than expand it. Itās understandable. Trauma can ********* every aspect of our lives and take deep root. Christine Ristaino gives us another approach, while still acknowledging the devastation of pain and its inevitable aftershocks. It takes courage and an open-hearted soul to go in search of meaning, and to reserve judgment and question bias. And, as Ristaino also does, to embrace suffering, allow it to unearth other buried trauma, and ultimately to use her unfortunate experiences for healing herself and others. On a literary level, her retrogression of the āeventā as she moves forward in life is brilliant. The writing is clean, seamless, and thought-provoking. She doesnāt end the story, but rather invites us to continue the conversation. Highly recommended.
LS
10/13/2023
Linda S. Moore
Heartbreaking story with happy ending
I donāt usually read memoirs but this one was given to me by the author for my honest review and because she is a very sweet kind person who knew I was interested in reading her book. Itās a heartfelt account of a terrible event that changed her and her two small childrenās lives forever. Being attacked going into a store is one you would not expect to ever happen. There are usually to many people or to much traffic or to much of something. One this occasion there was none of that. Only a woman with her small children needing just a little help getting the cart on the curb. What happened next threw me for a loop. How could anyone be so mean and cruel as to hurt a woman in front of her children. They were so helpless as was she. Thinking about someone doing such a cruel thing makes a person not trust their own instincts about how safe a place may be. This book is told in a kind of diary type way that made me want to keep reading to find out more. I was amazed at how many women are attacked everyday and how it happens. From being robbed to *****. From being in a very public place to a somewhat secluded space. It happens way to often to us. Thank you Christine Ristaino for the copy of this book. I am very happy to have you as a friend and am very sorry for the things that happened to you. To so many of us. Very well written. Very well expressed. I suffer from extreme anxiety and will never get over that but I have accepted it as part of my life.
P
10/11/2023
Professor
Still processing the priceless lessons.
Thank you to the author for sharing her story. We are all survivors of something and Christineās story made me feel less alone. I had to read this book in pieces because each section dared me to reflect. Itās been two weeks since I finished the book and Iām still thinking about it; still processing. Great story told with a unique voice.
