I read Robert Harris’ debut novel from 1992 for the first time Fatherland – the fabulously propulsive “what if the Nazis had won WWII?” speculative story meets end-of-the-world thriller – in the late 2000s. I was in the depths of my late teens and its wisdom made a strong impression. I guess it seemed fresh, not least in its willingness, 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 crumble slightly. Young people have long hair and indulge in jazz. The Beatles still played in Hamburg even though pop is officially banned. Any trace of the Final Solution is busily erased from history. It’s a vision of a parallel future that’s bold, paranoid and just plausible enough to terrify.
Few have mastered the alchemy of the popular historical novel like Robert Harris. The contours of his career – from ambitious political journalist to New Labour confidant and finally to global literary star – are well known. Fatherland What followed was a series of entertaining silly stories set in ancient Rome, involving various World War II-era ephemera, greedy American hedge fund managers, and a ghostwriter who gets drawn into the orbit of a vampiric ex-prime minister who bears a comical resemblance to Tony Blair.
His new offer, abyssbegins in 1914, shortly before the war. The 26-year-old aristocrat Venetia Stanley – clever, yearning, plagued by boredom – is having an affair with the middle-aged Prime Minister HH Asquith – clever, yearning, plagued by guilt. A dashing detective gets wind of their liaison. You can imagine where this leads. Private passions become public affairs. Sexual passions acquire geopolitical significance. Edwardian certainties are about to be forgotten, unbeknownst to our tragic, mostly charming protagonists.
As a convinced Harrishead, I turned abyss with some concern. Not because the historical setting was unattractive, or out of concern that the author’s narrative skills might have diminished since 2022. Act of forgettinga humorous depiction of the lives of Charles I’s executioners after the regicide. My worries were more prosaic in nature.
Exposition is inevitably the historical novelist’s best friend and most sadistic enemy. It turns out that highlighting a time and place, even one as well documented as the run-up to World War I and the bloodshed that reshaped Europe that followed, requires a lot of detail. Characters are often introduced by full name and job title. Harris’ Venetia Stanley muses on her history of unsuitable former suitors who were not Asquith’s, recalling “the sweet but ugly Edwin Montagu, MP and Financial Secretary to the Treasury.”
Contemporary signifiers are laid out in minute, somewhat wooden detail. When Asquith presents his lover with a sensitive file on the “Irish Question,” we are presented with a whole paragraph of arguments for and against Home Rule. Overall, this sort of thing has a somewhat chilling effect, especially when it comes to credible dialogue. “He said, ‘This is the most insoluble thing I’ve ever seen – and by God, I’ve had to contend with some in the last six years.'” Did he, would anyone really say that, apart from a character in a genre novel?
Aside from the somewhat disturbing explanation, Harris soon finds a well-rehearsed rhythm. Even if the catastrophic descent into war sounds familiar, there is still plenty of drama to be extracted from it. Veneita Stanely proves to be a complex, realistically sympathetic heroine; Asquith a brilliant, lovelorn clown. Harris skilfully quotes from the Prime Minister’s correspondence with his lover, which is full of state secrets, and invents her answers.
Perhaps the most compelling character is Paul Deemer, an ambitious and entertainingly sophisticated young detective – and Harris’s creation – tasked with investigating the fragments of British intelligence scattered across the English countryside. When he discovered the Prime Minister’s astonishing indiscretions, he “sat back on his heels as his mind struggled to grasp the magnitude … he felt grubby as he read them”. abyss isn’t quite the classic Harris, but that doesn’t detract from its solid, reassuringly predictable enjoyment.
Published by Hutchinson Heinemann on 29 August, £22
