Historical fiction is usually about the "big" moments. We get the battles, the signed treaties, and the speeches from balconies. But Ruta Sepetys did something different with The Fountains of Silence. She looked at the quiet parts of 1957 Spain—the parts people were literally paid to forget.
If you’ve read it, you know. It’s not just a YA novel. It’s a heavy, deeply researched autopsy of a country living under the "Pact of Forgetting." It’s about Daniel Matheson, an 18-year-old Texan with a camera, and Ana, a girl whose family was destroyed by the Spanish Civil War. But mostly, it's about the "Lost Children of Franco."
Honestly, it’s a lot to process.
The Reality Behind the Fiction: What Actually Happened in 1957?
Spain in the late 1950s was a weird place. On the surface, Francisco Franco was trying to rebrand. He wanted American money. He wanted tourism. He invited the Hilton hotels to Madrid to make the country look "open for business."
But inside the country? It was a police state.
Sepetys spent years digging through archives, and the stuff she found is actually more horrifying than the book lets on. The "Pact of Forgetting" (Pacto del Olvido) wasn't just a vibe; it was a legal and social agreement to ignore the atrocities of the Civil War to avoid another one. Imagine living in a city where your neighbor might have been the person who turned your father in to be shot, but you have to smile at them in the bakery every morning. That’s the tension Daniel walks into with his Nikon camera.
The stolen babies were real
This is the part that usually sends readers down a Google rabbit hole. In The Fountains of Silence, there’s a plot line involving the Inclusa (the orphanage) and missing infants.
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It wasn't a conspiracy theory.
Estimates from historians like Ricard Vinyes suggest that up to 300,000 babies were taken from "unfit" parents—mostly Republicans, the poor, or anyone the regime deemed "red"—and given to loyalist families. This started as a way to "purify" the Spanish race from the "Marxist gene." It continued as a massive, state-sanctioned human trafficking ring that lasted well into the 1980s.
People were told their babies died at birth. The parents were shown a "cold body" (sometimes a literal frozen doll) and sent home to grieve while their child was sold to a wealthy family across town.
Why Daniel Matheson’s Camera Matters
Daniel is a classic "outsider" character, but his role is specific. He represents the American gaze. In 1957, Eisenhower made a deal with Franco: the U.S. gets military bases in Spain, and Franco gets international legitimacy.
The U.S. basically looked the other way while people were being garrotted.
When Daniel tries to take photos of the "real" Spain—the poverty, the fear, the Guardia Civil—he’s told to stop. He wants to be a photojournalist, but he realizes that a camera is a weapon. It’s why the book is called The Fountains of Silence. Fountains make noise to drown out private conversations. Silence was a survival mechanism. If you spoke, you disappeared. If you photographed, you were a threat.
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The nuance of the "Guardia Civil"
One thing Sepetys gets right is the constant, looming presence of the shiny black tricorn hats. The Guardia Civil weren't just cops. They were the physical manifestation of Franco’s will.
You see this in the character of Puri. She’s Daniel’s cousin, but she’s also a product of the regime. She’s not "evil" in a cartoonish way. She’s just a girl who has been told that her religion and her country require her to be a certain way. Her internal struggle represents the millions of Spaniards who were caught between their conscience and their indoctrination.
It’s messy.
Addressing the Critics: Is it Too "Americanized"?
Some historians and literary critics have argued that the book centers an American boy in a Spanish tragedy. It’s a fair point. Why do we need Daniel to tell Ana’s story?
But if you look at the structure, Daniel is actually the foil. His naivety highlights how deep the trauma goes for the Spanish characters. He thinks he can just "fix" things or "take a photo" and change the world. Ana knows better. She knows that in Spain, the walls have ears.
The book doesn't give you a clean, happy ending because Spain didn't get one. Even after Franco died in 1975, the transition to democracy was built on that same silence. The bodies of the "disappeared" are still in mass graves under highways today. Spain is actually the country with the second-highest number of "disappeared" persons in the world, trailing only Cambodia.
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Let that sink in for a second.
Surprising Details You Might Have Missed
If you’re revisiting the book or researching the era, keep an eye on these specific historical markers Sepetys tucked in:
- The Lavender: Ana works at the Hilton, and the scent of lavender is everywhere. It was used to mask the smell of the city, but it’s also a metaphor for the way the regime tried to "perfume" over the rot of the past.
- The Garrote Vil: This was the primary method of execution. It’s a metal collar that breaks the neck. It wasn't some medieval relic; it was used in Spain until the mid-1970s.
- The "Vigo" Connection: The mention of the American bases isn't just flavor text. The base at Torrejón de Ardoz changed the economy and the culture of Madrid almost overnight, bringing in jazz, rock and roll, and a version of freedom that the local youth weren't allowed to touch.
How to Lean Into This History Today
If this book hit you hard, don't just put it back on the shelf. The "Silence" is still being broken in real-time.
First, look up the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (ARMH). They are the ones actually out there with shovels, digging up the roadside graves Daniel would have passed in his taxi. They’re finding the grandfathers and grandmothers of the "Ana’s" of the world.
Second, if you’re a fan of photography, look at the work of Robert Capa or Gerda Taro. While they shot the Civil War earlier than Daniel’s era, their work is the spiritual blueprint for the kind of "truth-telling" Daniel was trying to achieve.
Third, check out the documentary The Silence of Others. It was executive produced by Pedro Almodóvar and it follows the victims of the Franco regime as they fight a ground-breaking international lawsuit to get justice. It’s basically the real-life sequel to the themes in Sepetys’ novel.
Read the news coming out of Spain regarding the "Law of Democratic Memory" passed in 2022. The country is still fighting over whether to remove Francoist symbols or keep them as "history."
The fountains aren't as loud as they used to be, but the silence hasn't completely vanished yet.