A beautifully written haunting story that stays with you long after you finish reading. This is a story that needed to be told and it was done so brilliantly

I knew the story of Hugh O'Flaherty, having seen the Gregory Peck film The Scarlet and The Black, despite that Joseph O'Conner's novel is a thrilling read. It was so tense at times I had to stop reading!

Hugh O'Flaherty sets up an escape line, helping Alled soldiers and airmen escape, in the Vatican, a neutral country in the heart of Nazi occupied Rome. Focussing on one mission at Christmas 1943 as the group running the Escape Line try try to set a system up to get the escapees out of Rome. Combining a mix of memoirs of the events years later and the actual mission itself, this is a fast paced story of resistance, with well drawn characters and lots of tension.

A really good read!

I thank NetGalley and Vintage (Penguin Random House UK) for providing me with an ARC copy of this book, which I freely chose to review.
I’ll start by saying that this book is beautifully written, and I enjoyed it enormously. Set at a fascinating time (during WWII), in Rome, with a gripping plot (it has the intrigue of a spy novel and it involves a very worthy cause), a terrific cast of characters (from all walks of life and a variety of nations) led by an unlikely hero (an Irish priest living and working in Vatican City, Hugh O’Flaherty), it is also based on true events. But this is a novel (a historical novel or a historical thriller), as the author reminds readers in his note at the end of the book (a Caveat, Bibliography, and Acknowledgements, to be precise). He explains that although there is a historical basis for the narrative, and he did a lot of research (and he acknowledges his first-hand sources), he took some liberties with the material, and this should not be read as a historical text. In fact, he recommends some books for those who might want to get more accurate information about the facts.
That notwithstanding, I thought this novel was a great read. The story starts on Sunday the 19th of December 1943, and we soon realise that we are counting down the hours and minutes towards some big event that will take place on Christmas Eve. A dangerous mission is in place, and things aren’t going according to plan. Living in Vatican City, which remained neutral territory even though Germany had occupied Rome, wasn’t easy, even less if you were trying to help allied soldiers escape.
The narrative, divided into three acts (The Choir, The Solo, and The Huntsman, with a Coda, as pertains to a musical piece), alternates between a chronological narrative from O’Flaherty’s point of view, and a variety of testimonies from other members of the team (‘the choir’) also involved in the mission, in a capacity or other, given many years after the events. Those testimonies vary in form: transcripts from taped interviews (by the BBC), fragments of unpublished memoirs, letters, written statements, recorded interviews, and we also have some chapters from the point of view of the enemy giving chase, SS Officer Hauptmann. The author manages to make readers ‘hear’ the characters as they share their accounts of what happened while ramping up the tension and the intrigue in the parts that help us ‘see’ what was happening as if we were there. There is plenty of action, danger, risky situations, and all the ingredients to turn it into a gripping narrative, especially knowing what was at stake.
For evident reasons, I won’t go into specific details about what happens, but this is a novel that runs the gamut of emotions, and it is unlikely to leave anybody indifferent.
Any warnings? One only needs to think about the type of story and when it was set to know that there will be terrible things happening, and although, all things considered, the book is pretty discreet when it comes to violence, there is some, so do not be surprised. I also wanted to add an observation. Some readers did not enjoy the way of telling the story. They thought the many narrative voices made things confusing, and they had difficulty knowing who was saying what at times (some of the people listening to the audiobook complained about the same as well, whilst others thought it was wonderful). This is indicated in each chapter, and the characters are pretty distinct, but you do need to pay attention and not get distracted, although those who love spy novels shouldn’t have any problem. Perhaps adding a cast of characters to the book would help those who have limited time to read and might end up taking quite some time to finish a novel.
So, if you appreciate historical fiction, like the sound of the story and the setting, enjoy beautiful and lyrical writing, and don’t mind having a choir of voices tell a story, you should check this one out. You won’t regret it.

Thanks to Net Galley for this free read. This is a new author for me. The reader is taken to the time of war 1943/4 in Rome. We are introduced to Father O'Flaherty, who plays a central role in the 'escape line' of prisoners who have escaped from prisoner camps. The story is emotional and harrowing at times with some very tense moments. The story is revealed through memoirs and interviews used for a fictional tv programme in the 1960s. In addition to this we hear the voice of Father O'Flaherty with reference to his earlier life and how it shaped him as well as the challenges of his faith. A very thought provoking book with reminders of the terrors of war.

This book is based on the true story of Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty who risked his life to save thousands of Jews and Allied prisoners out of Italy.

This book, being based on a true story, felt informative while also invoking tension and suspense, being emotional and having me turning each page in suspense.

I will be reading and looking forward to book 2!

Sometimes fact and fiction intertwined doesn’t work. It does with this masterpiece! You are questioning what you know and what’s story telling, and it works so well. The Catholic Church has a longstanding history in Ireland and it bleeds forwards into all our generations. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, wonderful tension and suspense

Joseph O’Connor is on top of his game here: this book is a masterpiece. At times I found it incredibly moving, particularly at the end, and almost uncomfortably (but never gratuitously) gruesome at others. It is an example of historical fiction at its best, and the descriptions of Rome have made me want to travel there again. It transported me right into war time Rome, and I think this book will stay with me for a while yet.

This story tells us about the part Italy played in WWII. The nazis had taken control of Rome and someone was needed to co-ordinate getting people out to safety. It seemed there was only one person for the job of creating an Escape Line. An Irish padre takes on this role and the story is riveting from this point. How he goes about his role is exciting and dangerous. Although it has to be stressed that this is not totally a true story, there is truth within it. This was backed up by
the flitting of the story from the war years to the 1960’s war interviews. I loved this part as it really brought clarity to the story and an understanding of what people went through at this awful time.
It’s really well written and very well worth reading.

Historical novel in which an Irish Priest seeks to outwit a senior NAZI official with a fascination for the Roman Emperor Caligula.

This sort of thing, which fictionalises real events and real people, using their real names, needs to be done with care and in this novel it is. The subject matter has been covered before, but not as well, and most treatments keep well away from the way that the NAZI official, Paul Hauptmann, placed in charge of Rome when the NAZI’s occupied it in late summer 1943, turned a museum dedicated to archaeological discoveries connected to the Roman Emperor Caligula into his own private palace, guarded by crack troops and indeed minefields. The author of this novel does not give the issue undue prominence, but he doesn’t let the reader escape knowing that there were two important mirrors in the story:

Hauptmann and the Pope both had private enclaves guarded by private armies, which they tried to hold inviolable. And the struggle between the Irish priest, Hugh O’Flaherty and Hauptmann in Rome and the Vatican City in the modern age could be read as a re-enactment of the relationship between the early Christian Church and Caligula, who wasn’t the only Roman Emperor to resemble the Antichrist but he could have won handsome prizes for doing so, were any to be handed out.

This isn’t prominent enough in the plot to trouble the atheistic reader in the slightest and it enhances, rather than distracts from the adventure inherent in a good man and his loyal friends taking on a very powerful man who isn’t even friends with his own wife and children and is friends with his Fuhrer only in his dreams. This is an adversary who personifies evil by standing alone, but O’Flaherty and his friends simply serve good and certainly don’t presume to personify it.

The author is well equipped to put a lot of interesting language in the mouths of his Irish characters: “rats you could saddle” and “drunk as a boiled owl” do tend to stick in the memory, but his English characters are as good and the Italian ones nearly so.

It is all about an escape line for prisoners of war who managed to slip out of their prison camps, but this only comes about because O’Flaherty is forbidden, by the Pope himself, from interfering in the inhuman way those prisons were run. That prohibition stems from the Pope’s fear that, if provoked, the NAZIs will indeed return Rome and the Vatican: the heart of Christianity as the Pope sees it, to the days of Caligula or Nero and the reign of the beast. The rift between the Pope and O’Flaherty, who recognises the Pope’s authority and understands his reasoning, comes about because O’Flaherty realises, especially after his first personal encounter with Hauptmann, that the man does not need to be provoked before he will commit the most appalling crimes!

The title comes from the promise which Jesus made to his disciples “in my Father’s house, there are many rooms” (in some translations it is “mansions” rather than rooms). The Vatican City, where O’Flaherty hides his escapees and his own activities, is a vast, crumbling and untidy collection of forgotten rooms and passages crammed into a very small geographical space. Hauptmann’s own private Arcadia is tidy, uncluttered and expansive. Order prevails, on pain of death. O’Flaherty, living and operating in his father’s house, simply tries to muddle through and live. Their methodologies are as opposed as their beliefs.

Joseph O’Connor fictionalises a true story from World War 2 in the first of a planned trilogy, My Father’s House. The tale revolves around the work of Irish priest Hugh O’Flaherty who used his position at the Vatican, a neutral territory within Rome, to help Allied prisoners of war escape. The tale involves the recollections of his co-conspirators as well as the efforts of SS Officer Hauptmann to capture him.
The narrative of the novel is centred around one Rendimento, a mass movement of hidden escapees, planned for Christmas Eve 1943. In building up to this event, O’Connor takes readers into the lives of O’Flaherty’s choir, a group of embassy staff taking refuge themselves in the Vatican, journalists and locals. The ‘choir’ did get together to sing as a cover for their activities and O’Connor explores how the group hid and then moved prisoners of war. Slowly O’Connor builds up to the night of the Rendimento itself which provides a tense, back half of the novel.
While much of the story has been fictionalised, O’Connor has drawn on a range of historical sources, including the writings of O’Flattery himself. And as such he delivers a tale that is thrilling but also, even when it seems a little extreme, or the characters seem a little too colourful, carries the ring of truth. While the novel wraps all of the action and the fates of the characters up, My Father’s House has been marketed as the first of a trilogy about the Rome Line which helped escapees during the war. It will be interesting, given this, to see what aspect of this time and place O’Connor chooses to tackle next.

A novel based on the fascinating and dangerous escape route set in Rome during WW2. With its routes in fact this takes you on a well described journey through the experiences of the participants.
There are some very lengthy descriptive passages to contend with within this well written histoire

This was a very powerful novel. It is based on actual people and actual events but it is a novel.It is set in The Vatican during the second world war and covered an area of history that I had very little knowledge of.The characters were all well rounded and really wanted to know what would happen to them It was a complete page turner and I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys discovering new areas of history.

An indescribably beautiful book. I have never read any of Joseph O’Connor’s works before but I will. He writes lyrical prose littered with vivid descriptions conjuring up the beauty of Rome and the horrors of Nazi brutality. I did not want this book to end. The ‘choir’ led by Hugh O’Flaherty consumed me and I avidly followed them around the streets any alleys of Rome hoping they would succeed in their missions and also evade capture.
I would strongly recommend this book. It focuses on the beauty of bravery, friendship and selflessness in a time of pain, greed and depravity. O’Connor does not shy away from the depths that humanity can sink but manages to write a book full of hope and love. An author who can conjure up time, place and people with a few well chosen and memorable phrases. Stunning.

‘My Father’s House’ by Joseph O’ Connor is a fascinating and often thrilling read about Irish priest Hugh O’Flaherty who dedicated his time during the Nazi occupation of Rome in 1943 to setting up and working as an integral member of an Escape Line. His efforts enabled hundreds of escaped prisoners of war, as well as minority groups targeted by the Nazis, to leave Rome undetected. That this is a true story is both humbling and inspiring in equal measures.
The story consists of preparations for a Christmas Eve ‘rendimento’ during which large sums of money to be spent on helping those in hiding to escape are dropped into safe hands over a fourteen mile trail round Rome. Being caught after curfew means certain death, but not until the vicious SS Paul Hauptmann ensures that anyone under suspicion is tortured for their comrades’ names. Hauptmann is highly distrustful of O’Flaherty; all he needs is an opportunity to arrest him if the latter leaves the neutral Vatican city.
The narrative is told through a number of different voices, most of them belonging to key members of the Escape Line who pose as an amateur choir. There is comfort in the fellowship but they all realise that, ultimately, this will not protect them. As one member describes:
‘Lamplight on seven faces.
The Choir.
Together, but in the end, one was out on one’s own.
Always there would need to be a solo.’
Set in 1943 and also in the early sixties, these characters look back on the terrors of Nazi rule and describe the risks they all ran in their desire to challenge the enemy. ‘My Father’s House’ is a skilfully told historical novel in which the author transports us to the winding streets, bomb sites and desecrated squares of war-torn Rome through vivid, evocative prose. I would be surprised if someone in the film industry has not already snapped up production rights!
My thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK, Vintage, Harvill Secker for a copy of this book in exchange for a fair review.

While I love the premise and the author, I found it really hard to keep straight the slew of characters. Maybe just picked it up at the wrong time.

4* My Father’s House tells the (partially fictionalised) story of an eclectic group,
known as the Choir, who enabled significant numbers of people to escape from occupied Rome from 1943 onwards.

Led by Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty and boasting an ambassador and a countess among the ranks, this brave group supported the provision of money, clothes, routes and a means to escape, despite them being holed up in the neutrality of Vatican City for some of the time.

This is a a tense and detailed telling of a remarkable point in history. Pitted against Obersturmbannführer Paul Hauptmann, local Gestapo chief, the Choir have to be tenacious and adaptable to overcome many obstacles, many of which could not be second guessed. There is also a welcome recounting is post war events, including what happened to all of those involved.

This is an informative and intriguing tale of a lesser-told part of WWII, the occupation of Italy. As a reader I completely bought into the endeavours of O’Flaherty and his team, albeit there were times when the author was too keen with his research and the details slowed the narrative down more than I would have liked.

Overall a superb read. Thanks to Harvill Secker, Penguin RH and Netgalley for an
ARC.

Wow, what a roller coaster ride! This is a superbly-written WW2 thriller, peopled with larger-than-life characters that you really care about and root for (not least, Hugh O'Flaherty himself). The fact that it's based on true events give the story even more urgency and poignancy.
If I have the tiniest of criticisms, it's that at one point near the end, it did all feel a little 'James Bond' and unbelievable and - again a tiny point - Germans celebrate Christmas on 24th December, not 25th, something that's overlooked in the story.
However, all of that aside, I loved it and couldn't wait to get back to it. I listened on audio and it was gripping and beautifully narrated. I really felt transported to Rome in the 1940s. I can't wait for the next book in the series. .

Rome Escape Line Trilogy #1

September 1943: German forces occupy Rome. Gestapo boss Obersturmbannfuhrer Paul Hauptmann rules with terror. Hunger is widespread. Rumours fester. The war's outcome is far from certain. Diplomats, refugees, and escaped Allied prisoners flee for protection into the Vatican City, at one-fifth of a square mile the world's smallest state, a neutral, independent country within Rome A small band of unlikely friends led by a courageous Irish priest is drawn into deadly danger as they seek to help those seeking refuge.

This book is based on the true story of Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty, a brave and courageous man. He put his life at risk against the Nazis to help the Jews and other escaped prisoners to flee. Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty was a true hero. The Vatican City was supposed to be neutral, but during WWII, it was a place where Allied troops and Jews were smuggled. The book alternates between 1943 and twenty years later, when the people who had helped the escapees were interviewed by PBS.

What a well-written, intriguing, and gripping read this book was. This is one of the best historical fiction war books I've read. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of this trilogy.

I would like to thank #NetGalley #RandomHouse #Vintage and the author #JosephOConnor for my ARC of #MyFathersHouse in exchange for an honest review.

My Father House by Joseph O’Connor is set in Rome 1943. The story is based on the true story of Irish Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty a Vatican Priest based at the Vatican who with some other Patriots run the escape line in Nazi occupied Rome who saved over 6,500 soldiers by housing and hiding soldiers, escaped prisoners of war and jews that the Nazi regime took against.
I must admit I have never heard of this heroism before. But I was fascinated of this story that the author has brought to life. But, only at times, the different excerpts of the interviews that was written through out did confuse me a little bit of what the connection was. But as I delved further into the story, I came to realise it made sense. This is a great read for any historical fiction fans out there, 4 stars from me.

4.5 rounded up


It’s September 1943, and German forces occupy Rome, with Gestapo boss, Paul Hauptmann ruling with a terrifying iron fist. There’s privation leading to widespread hunger and a multitude of swirling rumours. The goose-stepping troops armed with machine guns and gripping growling dogs keep control with spies and surveillance, adding to the horror. Stepping into this dangerous fray is a band of unlikely friends led by a courageous priest. Their cover is a choir and the choristers are Delia Kieran, wife to the senior Irish diplomat at the Vatican, Marianna de Vries, a Dutch, freelance journalist, Sir D’Arcy Osborne, the British ambassador, Enzo Angelucci, former new stand owner, Sam Derry, an escaped British prisoner of war, John May is the resourceful man servant to the ambassador, Contessa Giovanna Landini, a widow, and the “conductor” is Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty. Will the Nazis dare to invade the small neutral enclave of the Vatican City? There the characters are relatively safe. The novel is told as a countdown to the Rendimento (whose literal meaning is performance) a daring mission which is to take place on Christmas Eve 1943. It’s the story of tremendous bravery and sacrifice, and is based on the true story of Hugh O’Flaherty.

I can say with absolute certainty that this is one of the best works of historical fiction I have ever read. I love the way Joseph O’Connor writes, he has a wonderful way with words, it’s literary with some superbly apt and creative phrases and metaphors that serves to transport me to Rome of 1943. His writing is lively, it’s engaging and even manages to be amusing on some occasions, usually courtesy of Delia, who paints a terrifically colourful portrait of Hugh. I particularly like the way the author chooses to tell his tale via the countdown in 1943, which is interspersed with BBC Interviews of the choir members recorded in 1962 to 63 and some transcripts. This enables the reader to hear their individual voices, to gain a strong sense of their different personalities and varied backgrounds and all are well fleshed out.

The atmosphere in Rome is incredibly tense and the stunning and beautiful city provides such a contrast to the horrors of Nazi occupation. At times, I feel as if I’m just behind Hugh as his feet tread the streets or alleys in fear of discovery. The danger is palpable. The countdown to the Rendimento adds further suspense and tension, and I like the way the author almost draws this out (in a good way) as you’re almost holding your breath and when it comes you are willing them on, but so afraid for them. Their bravery is in no doubt.

This is a truly remarkable story, told extremely well with genuine intensity, so you are immersed in those dark days of 1943. It’s a story of guts, of resilience, of thinking on your feet, although that of course does take care of planning and preparation. Despite the fact that this is the story of darkness that lurks therein, ultimately, it’s a story of hope.

With thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.