My Father's House: From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Star of the Sea (The Rome Escape Line, 1)

Product Information

Under cover of music they explore plans and escape routes, false names and addresses as they prepare for a major mission, codenamed the Rendimento. The novel is built out of the present-tense close third-person narrative of the priest, Hugh O’Flaherty, the technique historical fiction owes to Hilary Mantel, interspersed with fictional interviews conducted for a radio programme in 1963 with the seven people running the escape line under Hugh’s direction. Her debut collection of short stories, Antarctica, won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and the William Trevor Prize. This formidable talent for writing across genres is reflected in his masterly 10th novel, which should reap similar plaudits. Together the voices offer testimony of a daring mission on Christmas Eve 1943, where Msgr O’Flaherty, with the help of seven others, must drop money around the city to help evacuate prisoners from safe houses before an expected influx of Nazi soldiers early in the new year.

My Father’s House (The Rome Escape Line Trilogy, 1)

O’Connor is a visualist who revels in evocative cityscapes of a Rome under siege: “A trio of diseased sycamores and the concrete hive of a machine-gun turret.

There are near misses, scenes of intense physical suffering and rising jeopardy, particularly as we also see vignettes of Hauptmann’s evening. The pathways through the labyrinthine escape line were torturous, but an essential route to the depths of love and compassion that graces every character in the Choir, and the supporting cast. And so, like other fictional priests before him – Graham Greene comes to mind, but there’s also a reference to TS Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral – O’Flaherty chooses between his vow of obedience and his conscience, every hour of every day and right up to the end, where the final twist is satisfyingly theological. It’s an incredibly dangerous but tightly-run clandestine operation, and O’Flaherty remains frustratingly out of Hauptmann's grasp. And for anyone who has been lucky enough to spend time in Rome and pick up enough of the language to get by - you're in for a real treat!

My Father’s House by Joseph O’Connor: A masterful, seamless My Father’s House by Joseph O’Connor: A masterful, seamless

It's incredible how they helped so many escaped prisoners and Jews, with money, medicine, papers, clothes - whatever they needed, also hiding them using every bit of available space. Beautifully crafted, his razor-sharp dialogue is to be savoured, and he employs dark humour to great effect. O’Connor endows his O’Flaherty — whom he warns us is a fictionalised version of the man himself — with a near- encyclopaedic knowledge of the boltholes and rabbit warrens of Rome and Vatican City.This is a love letter to Rome, Italy, and Ireland, by turns heart-rending, comedic and awe-inspiring. His journey into heroism is inevitable once he is faced with the stark brutality of a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp and the craven ambivalence of the papacy. From the acclaimed, bestselling author of Star of the Sea and winner of the 2021 Irish Book Awards Book of the Year for Shadowplay , comes a gripping and atmospheric new novel set in occupied Rome.

My Father’s House by Joseph O’Connor — rebel with a cause My Father’s House by Joseph O’Connor — rebel with a cause

Diplomats, refugees, Jews, and escaped Allied prisoners flee for protection into Vatican City, the world’s smallest state, a neutral, independent country nestled within the city of Rome. He's already on Hauptmann's deadly hitlist after he visits a POW camp and, horrified by the conditions of the prisoners, insists on giving them treats and water.We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. The novel, set in Rome in 1943, is based on the extraordinary true story of a Catholic priest, Hugh O’Flaherty, and the running battle of wits he and a team of unlikely conspirators played against Rome’s terrifying Gestapo leader, Paul Hauptmann. Where My Father’s House really shines is in O’Connor’s assembly of the material and his ventriloquistic way with voice. Curiously, while naming Hugh O'Flaherty, a Monsignor, and other real life individuals by their actual names, Herbert Kassler, the actual Gestapo Commandant in Rome, and a central character in the book, is given the fictional name of Paul Hauptmann.

Book Review - My Father’s House - Joseph O’Connor Book Review - My Father’s House - Joseph O’Connor

Premium Digital includes access to our premier business column, Lex, as well as 15 curated newsletters covering key business themes with original, in-depth reporting.Part of O’Connor’s genius is that we hear O’Flaherty’s own voice and see him through the narration of his friends. The story in ‘My father’s house’ is always building to Christmas Eve, 1943, when a mission (code name Rendimento) takes place. Based on a true story, and several real characters, My Father’s House opens in September 1943 with wartime Rome as its memorable backdrop. O’Connor achieves this balance partly through characterisation and voices strong enough that we eagerly follow them through uncertainty, mundanity and disappointment as well as high-stakes jeopardy. At times, you have to stop to think hard about what is happening, because it is so awful and yet, in the story, mundane.