I first read Robert Harris’ s 1992 debut novel Fatherland – the fabulously propulsive “what if the Nazis won the Second World War ?” speculative history meets doomsday detective procedural – in the late 2000s. I was in the depths of my late teens and its cleverness made a strong impression. I suppose it seemed fresh, not least in its willingness, so I thought, to embrace and subvert the constraints of its genre.
Xavier March is a “good cop” despite his SS uniform. State power is beginning to slightly fray. Young people have long hair and indulge in jazz.
The Beatles have still played Hamburg, even if pop is officially banned. Any trace of the final solution is being busily deleted from history. It’s a vision of a parallel future that is audacious, paranoid and just about plausible enough to chill.
Few have mastered the alchemy of the popular historical novel quite like Robert Harris. The contours of his career – ambitious political journalist to New Labour confidant, to global literary stardom – are well-known. Fatherland was followed by a series of enjoyable romps based in ancient Rome and others dealing variously with assorted Second World War ephemera, rapacious American hedge fund managers and a ghostwriter pulled into the orbit of a vampiric ex-prime minister with a comically strong resemblance to Tony Blair.
His new offering, Precipice , opens on the cusp of war in 1914. Twenty-six-year-old aristocrat Venetia Stanley – clever, yearning, ennui-ridde.