Review: "My Father's House," Joseph O'Connor

By  Paul Carrier

Hugh O’Flaherty, a Catholic priest from Ireland who lived and worked in Vatican City during World War II, led a clandestine group that saved thousands of Jews and escaped prisoners of war from Nazi clutches by hiding them in Rome and then funding and arranging their escape from the city.

In 2023, Irish novelist Joseph O’Connor transformed fact into fiction when he released a beautifully written take on O’Flaherty’s exploits that blends lyrical prose and nail-biting suspense to chronicle how far high-minded people will go to protect the vulnerable, risking their own lives in the process.

In O’Connor’s account, Paul Hauptmann, the Gestapo leader in occupied Rome, is well aware that someone is spiriting away people who are sought by the Nazis. The Germans are all the more determined to put a stop to the escapes because Hitler himself knows about them, and is furious.

As Christmas 1943 approaches, O’Flaherty and his fellow conspirators, who call themselves the Choir, gear up for an upcoming “Rendimento,” which is the Choir’s term for a high-risk mission to finance and implement relocations. In their world of clandestine planning sessions and coded terminology, endangered people are Books who are initially housed in Roman hideaways known as  Shelves.

The novel opens at 10:49 p.m. on December 19, “119 hours and 11 minutes before the mission,” and the countdown continues in the pages that follow, as zero hour draws near. Chapter by chapter, O’Connor introduces the members of O’Flaherty’s small squad, who include, among others, a countess, a street-smart aide to a British ambassador and a young, down-to-earth Roman whose day job is operating a newsstand.

It becomes clear in the first half of the novel that at least some members of the Choir will survive the war. Their fictional recollections, which appear at intervals througgout the novel, are described as coming from interviews or other documents that date from the post-war period.

But does O’Flaherty escape unscathed as well? As the Rendimento draws near and tensions mount, readers learn that the Nazis either know O’Flaherty is the leader of the Choir or suspect as much.

My Father’s House chronicles the Choir’s exploits with such skill that readers will be hard-pressed to put the book down as they  track the high drama of daring people saving lives against seemingly overwhelming odds. It doesn’t hurt that an inspired plot, compelling writing, a setting as mesmerizing as the Eternal City and healthy dollops of humor are key ingredients.

The portraits of Choir members are delightful, despite the dire circumstances in which these crusaders find themselves.

Take for example, Enzo Angelucci, the Nazi-hating newsstand owner who is described as a “lofty-browed, umber-eyed, unimpressible Roman, face made to be stamped in profile on an imperial coin, his nosebone the length of Italy.” As for O”Flaherty, he speaks “beautiful Italian” and is fluent in seven languages, with a mind “like a lawnmower blade” that can “shear through any knot.”

It can be a bit frustrating to realize, as O’Connor readily acknowledges, that the novel takes some liberties with the facts., but this is a work of fiction after all. “Incidents have been concentrated, characters amalgamated, renamed, adapted or invented,” the author writes. As for the real-life Choir members depicted in the novel, O’Connor says they are “my versions and are not to be relied upon by biographers or researchers.”

Still, My Father’s House captures the bravery and single-minded commitment of O’Flaherty and his team, the ruthlessness of the Gestapo, the still-debated political outlook of Pope Pius XII, and the complex logistics involved in finding temporary Roman housing for people evading the Gestapo and then sending them to safer quarters outside the city.

My Father’s House has been billed as the first book in a trilogy. Only one sequel — The Ghosts of Rome — has been released to date.