First published 2002
Joseph O'Neill inherited two family mysteries from World War II. His Irish grandfather served in the IRA before British forces interned him alongside fellow republicans. His Turkish grandfather, a Christian from the Ottoman minority, faced imprisonment by British authorities in Palestine. O'Neill sets out to reconstruct these parallel stories of detention and resistance. He travels between Ireland and the Middle East, sifting through archives and family memories. The investigation reveals how war shaped both men's lives and how their experiences echo through generations. As O'Neill pieces together fragments of testimony and official records, he confronts the complexity of political violence and the weight of inherited history. The search becomes a meditation on family loyalty and the stories we tell ourselves about the past.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, biography-memoir, 21st-century
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Ireland, Middle East, Palestine, Ottoman Empire
Period: World War II
352 pages · Paperback · Granta UK
Content warnings: war