At times difficult to read, this is a fascinating and unsettling portrait of Vienna from the Anschluss to the end of the Second World War. At times a story of compromise and collaboration, and at times a story of quiet and dangerous resistance. It felt much more ‘real’ than many second world war novels I have read.
Plot in a Nutshell
Night Falls in the City opens in Vienna in 1938 on the Eve of the Anschluss. Julia Homburg is an actress and her husband Franz, a left wing politician who is also Jewish. Both are initially reluctant to recognise the changes coming and then drawn into intrigue needed to protect Franz and his family. The novel spans the course of the war and follows Julia and her friends as they adjust to life under the Nazis as their enlightened world changes beyond recognition.
Thoughts
Night Falls in the City is not a novel to rush with. I initially struggled to embrace the story through the first 100 pages. It was written in the late 60’s and at times this shows in the language. Sentences are very long and often complex and I found myself having to re-read paragraphs from time to time. There is also a large cast of characters introduced early on in the novel. They predominantly represent the liberal intelligentsia and have interconnected lives. There is also an assumption that the reader understands some of the more recent history of Austria which characters refer to regularly without a great deal of explanation.
It is however very much worth sticking with.
The novel worked on two levels for me. First, the characters. They feel disconcertingly real. Gainham paints her Austrian protagonists as privileged and flawed. Julia is arrogant and emotionally cold; Hella’s shows parsimony and an anxious desire for social standing. Gainham also skillfully avoids caricature when describing the small number of German soldiers, policeman and bureaucrats who become part of Julia’s world. There is no melodramatic villainy here, only ordinary men making choices within a shifting moral landscape. I found myself deeply invested in how they would cope, and what survival might cost.
Beyond the characters and their experiences Gainham also tells a mirroring story of Vienna (and to a lesser extent Austria). The story opens on a beautiful, enlightened City. The Anschluss quickly highlights the darker parts of life that were not far from the surface. As we follow Julia we also follow Vienna. Compromises are made and impact both until by the end of the novel the city is dirty and heavily damaged.
Gainham writes with a huge amount of detail. We see the inner thought processes of a number of the characters and the City is also presented in minute details. There is moral ambiguity throughout; we see the unconscious and accepted bias that many had for not just the Jewish people, but also gypsies and the Slavic nations. Early in the novel there is a scene of horrific violence against an elderly Jewish man; most turn away and do nothing.
In a Europe where far-right politics are again gaining visibility, the novel feels disturbingly timely. It offers a clear-eyed exploration of appeasement, social self-preservation and the incremental logic of collaboration. No one here believes themselves monstrous. That is precisely the point.
A final note whilst this works as a stand alone novel it is in fact the first in a trilogy. The others are now on an ever growing TBR.