Will I love My Father's House?

MY FATHER'S HOUSE is the first novel in Joseph O’Connor’s “Rome Escape Line Trilogy, “ based on the real-life Hugh O’Flaherty, an Irish priest serving at the Vatican. He and a band of allies dubbed “the Choir” smuggle diplomats, Jews, and allied soldiers out of Rome.
The novel’s structure is a countdown. The opening chapter’s heading reads, "119 hours and 11 minutes before the mission” (an operation that’s slated for Christmas Eve, 1943). Delia Kieran, wife of an Irish diplomat, and Monsignor O’Flaherty, the Choir’s Conductor, drive a critically ill member of the team through German checkpoints, searching for medical… show more.

I liked the different perspective of this novel. The main character is an Irish priest in Rome who refuses to bow to pressure and toe the Nazi line by running an escape line for Allied prisoners of war.

It’s a story of courage and determination and is beautifully written, too. The characterisation is a masterclass in how to bring people to life.

Based on a true story, yet written with great skill and imagination, I found it totally immersive. This was the first book I've read by this author, but it won't be the last.

Joseph O’Connor is an Irish writer, and Ireland seems to produce some of our greatest writers.

This is a thrilling book that I could not put down and in addition it is beautifully written and is about actual historical events that I personally care about and that I did not know about before reading this. The book recounts how an Irish priest in the Vatican engineered an escape route for thousands of Jews and escaped Allied prisoners of war during World War 2 under Nazi occupation of Italy.

This had personal relevance for me as my uncle was in a… show more.

I loved O’Connor’s Star of the Sea and I was curious to see what he’d do with Rome, a city I can’t help seeing to some extent as my ‘hood.

Even writers who have lived in the city and know it well can make mistakes that shatter the illusion they’ve worked to create. But I needn’t have worried. Gripping, intriguing and beautifully written, part of what makes My Father’s House such a fascinating read is the way O’Connor portrays so accurately the intricate, often uneasy relationship between the Vatican and the city that surrounds it, in this case under German… show more.