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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. This unsettling encounter causes him to question both his and the town’s ability to screen out the uncomfortable truths about the Madgalene laundries. I also enjoyed the dialogue in the book, wjhich often has an natural, snappy quality, and O'Connor has a great turn of phrase ('If I backed the tide it wouldn't come in, ‘if he was a banana he'd peel himself’).
My Father’s House by Joseph O’Connor — rebel with a cause My Father’s House by Joseph O’Connor — rebel with a cause
Where My Father’s House really shines is in O’Connor’s assembly of the material and his ventriloquistic way with voice. 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.
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Book Review - My Father’s House - Joseph O’Connor Book Review - My Father’s House - Joseph O’Connor
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. On Christmas Eve and under the particular surveillance of Gestapo leader Paul Hauptmann, O’Flaherty needs to distribute large sums of money to people in hiding and organise their escape from the city. 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. O’Connor is playing with the possibilities of multiple narrators, and thinking also about plurality, reliability and the historical record: is a collection of witnesses more accurate than a solo narrator?Canon Richard Lamey is the Rector of St Paul’s, Wokingham, and Area Dean of Sonning, in the diocese of Oxford. O’Connor also has consistent wit and lightness of touch — when, for example, some American servicemen insist on throwing balls from house to house across the street after they are told that they can’t go outside. The realities described here are unimaginable but vividly portrayed in writing so delectable in such a horrid tale. He was brought up to despise British soldiers; now he cannot but rescue them from the Hauptmanns of this world. The author drags us into the grime of wartime resistance and it's inherent danger with language both gritty and so beautiful at times it is like poetry.
Book club: My Father’s House by Joseph O’Connor Book club: My Father’s House by Joseph O’Connor
Any changes made can be done at any time and will become effective at the end of the trial period, allowing you to retain full access for 4 weeks, even if you downgrade or cancel. My father’s house’ is a literary thriller, based loosely on a true story, and knowing this makes me want to investigate further. I found this a strong work of historical fiction, strengthened by the fact that it was based on a true story, and is very much about compassion, love, faith, and resilience during the most extreme of circumstances. While the novel hues to the basics found in the biographies of Kassler, O'Flaherty and others, his embellishment of the characters is very liberal and makes it much more a fictional account than one which weaves the historical times more accurately into the narrative such as found in Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy. This experience shows on the page, the raconteur’s flair for mining history that has seen his work translated into over 40 languages.There are near misses, scenes of intense physical suffering and rising jeopardy, particularly as we also see vignettes of Hauptmann’s evening. 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. 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. This felt like a mismash of genres—historical fiction, potboiler thriller, and literary fiction rolled, unsuccessfully, into one. Certainly would make a great movie, and it becomes natural to draw comparisons with Oscar Schindler.
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