The Cameraman
By Matthew Kneale
Atlantic Books, £16.99

Matthew Kneale is best known for his novel, English Passengers (2000), which won the 2000 Whitbread Book of the Year Award and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Like many of his novels it is set abroad. Kneale and his family live in Rome and his mother was the well-known children’s author and German-Jewish refugee, Judith Kerr.

The central character in The Cameraman is a former cinematographer, Julius Sewell. It is 1934 and Sewell is travelling across Europe with his family to his sister’s wedding in Mussolini’s Rome.

There is a twist. Julius has been in a psychiatric hospital and has only just been released to travel. And then there is his family. Julius’s stepfather and mother are both supporters of Oswald Mosley’s the British Union of Fascists.

One of his half-sisters, Maude, is in studying in Munich, where she dreams of meeting meet her idol, Adolf Hitler.

Another half-sister, Harriet, is a communist and seems determined to wreck the approaching wedding, because the groom is a rising figure in Italy’s fascist regime. They are a kind of strange version of the famous Mitfords.

Julius looks back on his sad childhood. A dead father, “endless rows during school holidays”, an unhappy time at boarding school with the stench of racism and antisemitism.

“I suppose I didn’t feel very normal even then.” His stepfather and half-siblings don’t seem to like him or to be able to handle his recent breakdown.

The trip is hard enough. Julius is prone to panic attacks and knows that his family’s eyes are on the lookout for any signs of a relapse. Then he is given a mysterious document while they are travelling through Germany on their way to Rome with a request that he passes it on to the Manchester Guardian.

At its best the novel is an interesting evocation of the Thirties, though the family are strangely indifferent to the dangers of a fast-changing world around them.

Their political posturing, whether left or right, gives them no insight. Julius, despite all his psychological problems, is the only person who seems to understand what is going on around them and the only one capable of any real empathy.

There is some suspense. Will Julius get the document to the Guardian? Will he and Harriet manage to break up Lou’s wedding to the fascist Federico?

Will Julius manage to stay out of hospital or will his ghastly family have him readmitted to hospital? But this is thin beer, and a long way from Kneale’s most successful novels.