A PERFECT SILENCE is Alba Ambert’s novel about a Puerto Rican woman brought up in the South Bronx and her struggles to break the cycle of poverty and oppression which has plagued her family for generations. As both child and adult, Blanca was abused by both people and the economic system the creates the meanest, most violent ghettoes. In Bianca, Ambert explores how oppression breeds violence and entraps people, even after they escape poverty and become successful. Once Bianca breaks out of the ghetto, she is not free; there is a severe emotional price to pay. She suffers the pain of living between two cultures, two languages, two ways of perceiving the world; she is caught in the emotional limbo of a dual identity.