Book Review: MY FATHER'S HOUSE by Joseph O' Connor

My Father's House by Joseph O'Connor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"I have come to see that neutrality is the most extremist stance of all; without it, no tyranny can flourish."

When we were mere high school students, my sister and I read an amazing novel, THE STAR OF THE SEA, and although it has been decades I still remember the images, and above all, the magical lilt in the language of the author, Joseph O'Connor, and we swore that we would track down his other books. We read his REDEMPTION FALLS in college, and were similarly mesmerized.

Life and other favorite authors interfered, and so this is sadly only my third O'Connor (his latest), but what joy to discover that the decades have not touched the literary skill of the brother of Sinead O'Connor!

I read it without knowing anything other than it was the latest book by an old favorite, but to my surprise, the plot sounded familiar. It turns out I had seen half of a Gregory Peck / Christopher Plummer film (THE SCARLET AND THE BLACK) about the very same (and very real) heroic Irish priest, Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty... the same protagonist in the novel!

"During the nine-month occupation of Rome, eighteen hundred Roman Jews were deported to the death camps. Fewer than twenty returned."

In World War II, Pope Pius XII sought to remain neutral. (How short this sentence, and yet there is so much to unpack! Morally speaking, to remain neutral in a time of great evil, when innocents were being slaughtered a stone's throw away from the seat of holiness, is a kind of evil in itself.)

Defying his vow of obedience, Father Hugh (together with other heroes) organized an escape route. Jews and Allied soldiers who could make it to the Vatican were smuggled out to safety, at great risk to their civilian protectors. They would meet for "choir practice," then plan how they would send aid or ferry prisoners from one city to another.

Told from several points of view, the polyphonic voices of characters of different countries and backgrounds are a testament to the superb ear of the author. And when he writes about music!!!

"Some consolation of the spirit, some release happens when human beings sing in a group, wherever and however that occurs. In a place of worship, on the terraces of a football stadium, in a cramped and draughty attic, bombers droning overhead. Nearly all music has beauty, but when it includes the marriage of baritone and soprano, of bass and alto, chorus and soloist, it becomes something more than merely the upliftingly beautiful. Harmony is an everyday, achievable miracle... Little wonder we refer to music as “a gift.”"

The taut action kept me reading til early morning on a school night. The beauty of the language made each page a pleasure to read. And the ending!!! As another reviewer put it, it could bring tears to an atheist's eyes.

"Hope, if it is ever encountered, is in the small things of the everyday, not an announcement from on high. In the aroma of cooking, a phrase from Vivaldi. A handclasp. A conversation...We can never know the miracle that is hiding in the everyday. Sometimes, it is a matter of looking."

What amazed this reader was how joyful and hopeful the book was, considering its dark subject matter. (I'd actually stopped reading World War II books because they were not good for my mental health, so it was a good thing I had NO idea what the book was about before I picked it up! Hurray for "read-on-sight" authors!)

"“Don’t you think you did a lot?” I asked. “Not enough,” he replied."

The ending haunts me, still. And it is always good to be reminded, that what is legal is not necessarily what is good.

After all, Jesus Himself was considered an outlaw, once.

This is only the first book in a trilogy! How joyfully we wait for the next two to come out!

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