Just Finished Reading: The Separation by Christopher Priest (FP: 2002)

After finishing his study of the German invasion of Russia historian Stuart Gratton is looking for another topic to investigate. He could try another epic already approved by his publisher about the US war in China and the subsequent decline of America in world affairs or something more focused, more personal, a mystery of identity. For as long as he can remember Gratton has been fascinated with the end of the war in Europe which coincided with his birth on May 10, 1941. Now he has found something else about that fateful date so long ago – the involvement of twin brothers, one in RAF Bomber Command and the other a worker in the Red Cross mentioned in Winston Churchill’s magisterial account of the conflict. But there the confusion starts – Churchill has confused the conscientious objector with the squadron leader and asked his staff to find out more. Is it just a misunderstanding too trivial to publically resolve or is there more to it. Would Graffton be wasting his time even investigating something so trivial and would a book resolving any mystery sell in numbers to justify the expense? But when the squadron leaders daughter provides him with an unpublished manuscript the mystery deepens even further. Memories of participating in huge bombing raids over Germany at late as 1945 call everything into question as do reports of surviving or dying during a crash into the English Channel in 1941. Which account is true? Whose memory is playing tricks? Did the twins even exist as separate people and what has Rudolf Hess got to do with everything?

Chris Priest is one of those authors with a gift. It’s the way he can start a story on solid ground and then, little by little, in logical steps, bend reality in such a way that you start to question everything. It’s not that fantastic elements overwhelm the story, it’s completely rational and makes complete sense. The war ended in 1941 and/or 1945. Bomber pilot Jack Sawyer, died/survived in 1941 and continued to fly until being shot down over Germany and spent the last 2 years of the war as a prisoner until the camp he was in was liberated by the Americans who never actually entered the war in Europe as Pearl Harbour never happened and anyway the European war was over in the Spring of 1941. To hold that many (and more) alternate histories in the palm of your hand and to keep them all nicely interacting until you no longer know what is or is not the ‘real’ history of the world post May ’41 without sending the reader mad is quite something to behold.

As you can imagine for such a superbly crafted but oh so complex plot you really, and I mean really, need to keep your wits about you. This is definitely not a book you can breeze through. You need to concentrate. Fortunately it’s gripping in a way that I haven’t read for some time. The book literally fascinates and I found myself turning pages late into the night (thankfully on my Christmas break). It got me thinking about a great deal – for days afterwards – about how the war could have ended in 1941. Could Britain, with Churchill in charge, really have signed a separate peace with the Germans? If so how would the world have turned out? I know that Hess flew to Scotland in 1941 but was there any real hope of peace at that point? Could our reality just be a failed version of what really did happen at the peace conference in Portugal where a lasting peace was brokered by the Red Cross and the Neutral Powers? I know that Hitler tried to make peace with Britain a few times but was he really serious? I don’t really know and, to be honest, it’s not a subject that gets talked about much in any WW2 books I’ve ever come across to date. They were bad, we were good, and we won. End of story. But what if…..?

It came as no surprise that this excellent work of SF/Alt History won the 2003 Arthur C Clarke Award. It’s one of the best SF books I’ve read in years and goes well beyond being merely thought provoking. Because of it I will be focusing a lot more on the first two years of ‘our’ WW2 to see if it could have been any different than it was. I wonder what I’ll find in the shadowy background and in-between the cracks of reality. Very highly recommended and a cracking start to 2016.