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

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I was reminded of the novels of John Boyne, Kate Atkinson, and most unusually, Andrew O’Hagan’s wonderful novel on fame, Personality, which has a similarly dazzling way with voice and historical period detail

This is a love letter to Rome, Italy, and Ireland, by turns heart-rending, comedic and awe-inspiring. O’Connor has a glorious way with words: he writes of Cahersiveen in County Kerry as a place “where a bottle of tomato ketchup would be considered exotic and possession of a clove of garlic would have you burned as a witch”. They include a widowed Italian countess, a flamboyant British diplomat to the Vatican and a Jewish Londoner jazz musician-turned-inspired scrounger, and they do actually sing at music rehearsals, conducted by the Monsignor. But all the while, he is distributing detailed instructions to each for what to do on the next Rendimento, the mission to help save thousands of Allied men.

For cost savings, you can change your plan at any time online in the “Settings & Account” section. If you’d like to retain your premium access and save 20%, you can opt to pay annually at the end of the trial. The cover of the book says “Occupied Rome. One man takes a stand.” Is this a book about one man or a book about a group of friends? Or something else? Joseph O’Connor’s earlier work was instrumental in demonstrating that modern historical fiction can mean novels of ideas and the state of the nation rather than works of populist nostalgia. Writing about second world war espionage and resistance is brave in this context – there are so many gold-lettered tales of homosocial derring-do sold to men in airports – but anyone buying My Father’s House with this expectation will find themselves expected to think as well as fantasise.

Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial?Claire Keegan’s short novel Small Things Like These is set in a small Irish town in the mid-1980s. At the centre of the story is Bill Furlong, a coal merchant, who, in the busy weeks leading up to Christmas, works hard to ensure that he can provide for his five daughters. While delivering coal to the local convent, he encounters a girl in distress. This unsettling encounter causes him to question both his and the town’s ability to screen out the uncomfortable truths about the Madgalene laundries. The moral dilemma that then consumes him provides the novel with its dramatic tension. The author’s sparing prose reflects the monotony of the coal merchant’s life, while capturing place and emotion to great effect. A powerful novel with an emotional punch. Those that run the Escape Line — an initiative Hauptmann is determined to stamp out — are gathered together in what becomes known as the Choir, under the tutelage of Monsignor O’Flaherty. Desperate to assert control, Berlin sends a new Gestapo Head to break O’Flaherty’s network and terrify the city into obedience. He is Paul Hauptmann. It is 1943. Italy is slowly being liberated by American and Commonwealth forces, but Rome is still occupied. People are hidden away by Mgr Hugh O’Flaherty and his network of friends, until it seems that you can’t open a coal cellar without finding a roomful of British soldiers. (In reality, O’Flaherty’s network is credited with saving nearly 7000 lives.) THIS stylish, gripping, and inspiring book, My Father’s House, is based on a true story of courage made manifest through the power of friendship. The title refers both to the fragile safety that the Vatican City provided for those resisting Nazism and, brilliantly, to the way in which Allied service personnel, refugees, and Jews were in hiding in “many mansions” all across the city.

A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy. O’Connor has a real gift for memorable scenes that live long in the memory and feel almost like a short story — the “choir” practising in a disused room and seizing a moment of harmony and happiness while creating their cover story; O’Flaherty hiding his notes away while under intense threat; the confrontation in the confessional; a network member realising that he does not have the courage that he needs to do the job that he volunteered for, and being met with understanding and sympathy by the rest of the network. Here he’s ambling up the steps to the residence and he grey with the dust from boots to helmet, huge leather gloves on him like a flying ace, and he blessing himself at the Lourdes water font on the hall stand.

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.

How effective did you find the different voices that O’Connor uses to tell his story, and the different types of writing, e.g. newspaper interviews, letters, diaries, etc. What was the benefit of this? What was the cost? Any writer worth their salt can do the research and present the facts. Where My Father’s House really shines is in O’Connor’s assembly of the material and his ventriloquistic way with voice. From the map of Rome and the Vatican at the beginning that locates the action, to the classical three-act structure, to a central narrative that moves forward in time over one momentous day, there is a clear sense of authority, a composer at work. In the hands of a less experienced writer, the many metafictional devices – unpublished memoirs, letters, transcripts from BBC interviews, among others – could confuse or detract from the story. O’Connor keeps an admirable command of the various strains and voices, some fictional, others, such as the British diplomat Sir D’Arcy Osborne, drawn from reality.As though a priest dressed like that was the most everyday sight you ever saw. And the bang of motor oil off him.” Ah, yes, as my old art editor used to say, he can throw a word to a pig. Joseph O’Connor’s new novel, based on the extraordinary true story of an Irish priest in the Vatican who helped to save thousands of prisoners during the Nazi occupation of Rome, is a riveting tale about the power of community in the face of unfathomable evil. The Escape Line, headed by Msgr Hugh O’Flaherty, was responsible for saving in the region of 6,500 Allied soldiers and Jews during the second World War. You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here.