THE ROAD BETWEEN US
BY NIGEL FARNDALE (Doubleday £16.99)
Two stories set some 70 years apart unfold in tandem in this big, busy novel whose themes range from the mysteries of memory to forbidden desire of all shades. In June 1939, two young men are arrested in a hotel room overlooking Piccadilly Circus. Anselm is deported home to Germany and spends the war imprisoned in a Nazi labour camp, his uniform marked with a pink triangle; Charles, court-martialled for ‘gross indecency’, eventually becomes a war artist in the hope of rescuing his lover.
Meanwhile, in April 2012, a British diplomat is released by his Afghan kidnappers after being held hostage in a cave for 11 years. Returning to London, Edward finds that his wife is dead and that Hannah, the daughter he last knew as a nine-year-old, has blossomed into an uncanny replica of her.
There’s a lot to juggle here and Nigel Farndale does so sensitively and for the most part persuasively, splicing scenes like the Dunkirk evacuation and the liberation of southern France with glimpses of conflict in modern-day Afghanistan. The psychological drama is equally charged.
As for the riddle of how these two tales connect, that’s what drives the novel and provides it with an unexpected twist.
