My Father’s House
By Joseph O’Connor
Harvill Secker, £20
Joseph O’Connor’s new novel, My Father’s House, is two things: a twisty thriller whose outcome is hard to guess; and an exquisitely rendered piece of literature from a masterful writer.
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.
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.
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.
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. The latter’s importance to the story is, of course, because of the Vatican’s supposed neutrality in the war, a neutrality echoed by that of Ireland.
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”.
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.
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.
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.
There is a guest appearance by an outraged Pope, furious at O’Flaherty’s “insubordination” when it comes to visiting prisoners of war in Rome, fascinating in the light of what was later learned about the behaviour of the wartime pontiff in relation to the Nazi regime.
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.
No subject relating to priests and faith is left untouched by O’Connor’s delicate style. A delicious hymn to love, food, and courage. Bravo.
