Everyone Was Silent: A memoir

For over three decades, Dina Martinelli—now a young wife and mother—keeps quiet about what happened in her family all those years ago. She doesn’t disclose what her brother Jude did to her, and she doesn’t discuss her lifelong relational war with her mother, Jean, due in part to Jean’s struggle with mental illness. But one day, Dina breaks her silence, and after that—with counseling and faith—her life gradually begins to improve. She even manages to forgive Jude. For abusing her in multiple ways. For years. Until the day Jean reveals that Jude is abusing the next generation of the family. Can Dina convince the family that never protected her to speak out and act to stop Jude? For survivors and their loved ones, for anyone whose childhood suffering is denied and ignored, Everyone Was Silent is a courageous portrait of intrafamilial sexual abuse that will help us protect our children.