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. Hauptmann embodies something of the terrible paradoxes in the heart of Germany in the 1930s — cultured and brutal, urbane and ruthless. He brings his family with him, living a troubling double life as a dealer of arbitrary death and a father. At times, you have to stop to think hard about what is happening, because it is so awful and yet, in the story, mundane. The narrative moves on, but someone’s torture is beginning, or their life ends. Towards the end of the book, that gap shuts horribly as, casually and meaninglessly, Hauptmann executes someone whom we thought he liked. 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 The story in ‘My father’s house’ is always building to Christmas Eve, 1943, when a mission (code name Rendimento) takes place. The final chase scene has a cinematic quality with high stakes and increasing tension and reminded me of Donald Sutherland in ‘don’t look now,’ with the dark alleys, water and piazzas at night. It's another part of the book where O'Connor excels, such is his attention to detail of the buildings in the basilica. It’s wonderfully atmospheric and builds to a superb climax. 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.

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

The Irish writer Claire Keegan grew up on a farm in Wexford before going on to study English and political science at Loyola University, New Orleans, at the age of 17. Her debut collection of short stories, Antarctica, won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and the William Trevor Prize. Her novella Foster is now included as a text for the Irish Leaving Certificate and was described by The Times as one of the top 50 works of fiction to be published in the 21st century. Her novel Small Things Like These was shortlisted for the 2022 Booker prize. Her award-winning stories have been translated into 30 languages. 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. 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. The Vatican City is an independent country within Rome. And Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, along with an unlikely group of friends called ’the choir’, continue to provide refuge to those who can reach them. It’s an incredibly dangerous but tightly-run clandestine operation, and O’Flaherty remains frustratingly out of Hauptmann's grasp. O’Flaherty himself is a complex and believable hero. Part of O’Connor’s genius is that we hear O’Flaherty’s own voice and see him through the narration of his friends. He is a papal diplomat brought up in rural Ireland in the bloody years of Irish Independence. We learn to know him through the warm tales of his life as a priest fresh to Rome, and his delight and ease in the city. He came to be friends with the people who are risking their lives alongside him. The mix of first- and third-person narratives feels fresh, insightful, and true.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.)

My Father’s House book review: Irish priest who defied Nazis My Father’s House book review: Irish priest who defied Nazis

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. 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. 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”.

Sign up to The JC newsletter

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. 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. All have distinctive and often very funny voices: they are Irish, English, Italian, aristocrats and shopkeepers. 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? Will anyone care? I doubt it. Readers will be too caught up in the stylishness of O’Connor’s writing, the delight in watching a plan come together, the tension of wondering whether it will succeed. 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.

My Father’s House by Joseph O’Connor review - The Guardian

Certainly would make a great movie, and it becomes natural to draw comparisons with Oscar Schindler. It's thought that through O'Flaherty, with the help of his choir and surrounding network, over 6,000 people were saved. O’Flaherty and Hauptmann are consciously set up as rivals in scenes reminiscent of the film Heat. Both men are haunted by the possibility of failure and driven by how much rests on their success. 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. And as each chapter heading steers the reader to the countdown before the frighteningly risky next Rendimento, we become utterly invested in the safety and the ultimate fate of “our” Monsignor and the motley members of the Choir.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. 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. Or take Delia Kiernan, a famed singer in Ireland before becoming wife of the senior Irish diplomat to the Vatican, recalling her first meeting with O’Flaherty: “His means of transport that night was his motorcycle. 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.