My Father’s House

Author Joseph O'Connor
Narrator Barry Barnes, Stephen Hogan, Barnaby Edwards, Laurence Bouvard, Aoife Duffin, Gertrude Thoma, David John, Roberto Davide, Thomas Hill, various
Publisher Random House
Publish Date 26 January 2023
Run Time 11 hours and 18 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Adventure fiction, Biographical fiction, Historical fiction, Narrative theme: Displacement, exile, migration, Second World War fiction, Thriller / suspense fiction.

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

September 1943: German forces occupy Rome. SS officer Paul Hauptmann rules with terror. The war's outcome is far from certain.

An Irish priest, Hugh O'Flaherty, dedicates himself to helping those escaping from the Nazis. His home is Vatican City, the world's smallest state, a neutral, independent country within Rome where the occupiers hold no sway. Here Hugh brings together an unlikely band of friends to hide the vulnerable under the noses of the enemy.
But Hauptmann's net begins closing in on the Escape Line and the need for a terrifyingly audacious mission grows critical. By Christmastime, it's too late to turn back.

Based on an extraordinary true story, My Father's House is a powerful literary thriller from a master of historical fiction. Joseph O'Connor has created an unforgettable novel of love, faith and sacrifice, and what it means to be truly human in the most extreme circumstances.

© Joseph O'Connor 2023 (P) Penguin Audio 2023

Critics Review

A spectacular, thrilling novel...suspense crackles...celebrates triumphant against-the-odds camaraderie.

Sunday Times

O'Connor is on stellar form with this ensemble thriller ...while the story's inbuilt tension urges you on, it's the sheer vigour of O'Connor's beautifully turned phrases that really makes the book sing...an expert storyteller

Daily Mail

A literary thriller of the highest order. The incarnation of O'Flaherty, the Irish Oskar Schindler, is sublime. What often elevates a writer is compassion, and O'Connor has it in spades... Beautifully crafted, his razor-sharp dialogue is to be savoured, and he employs dark humour to great effect. The plot twists keep on coming

Observer

Breathtakingly good writing - O'Connor puts you right there, centre stage in the story and never lets you go

Peter James

The novel's evocative scene-setting, its propulsive narration and its powerful depiction of bravery and unity in extremis, all make for an engrossing read.

Telegraph

Thrilling... Based on true events, this tense, gripping narrative is rendered in beautifully evocative prose

Mail on Sunday

Impressive and pleasurable...the diverse ventriloquism of O'Connor's novel evokes a city in peril with wonderful vitality

Financial Times

A tale worth re-telling, adorned as it is by the brilliants of O'Connor's impressionistic writing

The Times

A powerful portrait of extraordinary courage

Irish Independent

Precisely choreographed... We eagerly follow the characters through uncertainty and disappointment as well as high-stakes jeopardy. O'Connor is playing with the possibilities of multiple narrators, and thinking also about plurality, reliability and the historical record

Guardian, Book of the Day

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