Background Music

When Concetta Pianto sang her Il dolce suono, the people on Bokeem slowed to listen. But no one ever asked why she sang so often. “Nor did they query the vibrant bruises, tracked downward from her face to her limbs.” Background Music is a woman’s story of societal denial and private suffering—though the pain is not Concetta’s alone. There are others. A cross-dressing teen, a dutiful wife, and a mutt named Red-eyed Blue suffer, too. But no one ever asks—Why?