This famous author has always been known for his interest in history, whether in his prolific fiction or non-fiction.

In this novel he combines that enthusiasm with stories from his hometown of Kempsey, NSW. While some are from his late parents, the rest, he claims, are his own fault.

So this is a novel about Kempsey in 1933, some of the people living in it, and their past, including 1920s County Kerry, Ireland and World War I, particularly in 1916.

Readers will have to suspend quite a lot of disbelief as they become familiar with the war hero who somehow has possession of Corporal Hitler’s pistol from his World War I service; or the former Irish rebel, now a dairy farmer near Kempsey with a wife and children but harbouring homosexual desires.

A central character is Chicken Dalton, so named because he could hypnotise chickens, who is, in 1930s terminology, the town ‘pansy’ and piano player for the local silent movies. Another major character is Flo Honeywood, wife of an eminent master builder, who notes that the features of a young part-Aboriginal boy she sees around the town resemble those of her husband.

The horrors of the war come back to the former soldier in what would be termed PTSD in modern parlance, and he is sent to Sydney for treatment, with hypnosis proving most effective. He’d have even more horrors if he knew about the separate activities of his wife and son. There is murder and mayhem, not just in Ireland or in the war, with police homophobia and a husband’s domination well portrayed.

While Corporal Hitler’s Pistol is not one of Keneally’s best novels, with some of the characters almost caricatures, there is a distinctive whiff of small-town social structures and customs about its plot.

Reviewed by Jennifer Somerville

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Thomas Keneally was born in 1935 and his first novel was published in 1964. Since then he has written a considerable number of novels and non-fiction works. His novels include The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Schindler’s List and The People’s Train. He has won the Miles Franklin Award, the Booker Prize, the Los Angeles Times Prize, the Mondello International Prize and has been made a Literary Lion of the New York Public Library, a Fellow of the American Academy, recipient of the University of California gold medal, and is now the subject of a 55 cent Australian stamp.

He has held various academic posts in the United States, but lives in Sydney.