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A review by margaret21
My Father's House by Joseph O'Connor
5.0
An immersive story, taking as its starting point the fact that while Rome was under German occupation in 1942 and there was an Irish priest, Hugh O'Flaherty, based at the Vatican and involved in running an escape line for Jews, escaped POWs and resistance fighters during WWII.
The plan is to evacuate scores of refugees and resistance fighters, all separately hidden, out of Rome on Christmas Eve, when perhaps guard is lowered. Plans take place at the rehearsals of a specially convened Chamber Choir: singing drowns out the mutter of whispered instructions to each singer in turn. Each player in the plot has a role, No one knows what any other individual is required to do. Gestapo leader Paul Hauptmann has his suspicions that a plan is afoot, and O'Flaherty is in his sights.
This is a work of fiction, even though heavily indebted to known facts. The present tense narration of Hugh O'Flaherty's part in the drama is interspersed with fictional BBC interviews for a programme made in the 1960s. Each voice is distinctive, authentic, even funny: Irish, English, Italian, aristocrats and shopkeepers.
As in choral music, all involved have a part to play: the whole is more than the sum of the parts. The multiple narrators all bring their own interpretation to the story. The question of morality - whether a churchman should be involved in politics, in possible violence is a constant underlying theme. O'Flaherty's conscience is ever-present, to the very last page.
An often thrilling, always thought-provoking and absorbing story.
The plan is to evacuate scores of refugees and resistance fighters, all separately hidden, out of Rome on Christmas Eve, when perhaps guard is lowered. Plans take place at the rehearsals of a specially convened Chamber Choir: singing drowns out the mutter of whispered instructions to each singer in turn. Each player in the plot has a role, No one knows what any other individual is required to do. Gestapo leader Paul Hauptmann has his suspicions that a plan is afoot, and O'Flaherty is in his sights.
This is a work of fiction, even though heavily indebted to known facts. The present tense narration of Hugh O'Flaherty's part in the drama is interspersed with fictional BBC interviews for a programme made in the 1960s. Each voice is distinctive, authentic, even funny: Irish, English, Italian, aristocrats and shopkeepers.
As in choral music, all involved have a part to play: the whole is more than the sum of the parts. The multiple narrators all bring their own interpretation to the story. The question of morality - whether a churchman should be involved in politics, in possible violence is a constant underlying theme. O'Flaherty's conscience is ever-present, to the very last page.
An often thrilling, always thought-provoking and absorbing story.