Two Brothers – Ben Elton

Two boys are born on the same night in the same hospital in Berlin in 1920. One is the only surviving twin of Frieda Stengal; the other is an instant orphan, his single mother, estranged from her family, dying in childbirth. Could, would, Frieda - after all she was expecting to go home with two babies - give the orphan a home?  She and husband Wolfgang agree and it is all done above board, paperwork completed and lodged officially. What could go wrong?

Only one thing – Frieda and Wolfgang are Jewish while the cuckoo in the nest is pure Aryan; and as the Nazis come to power in the following decade and unveil their hateful credo, trouble brews for the Stengal family.

Into their teens the boys are unaware that they are not twins. Yes, they are different; one thoughtful and bookish, the other wilful and looking for action, but that’s just personality isn’t it? They also have much in common – a determination to fight back against the Nazi oppression and, more personally, a shared obsessive love for the same rich Jewish girl and a shared indifference for an adoring poor Aryan one.  Never mind love triangle, this is a love tetrahedron.

It all plays out over the decades. The Jews are dead men walking; the Aryan boy could be given up and saved, but that means him giving up a culture, parents, a brother and the girl.

The main strand is the straight chronological account of the Stengal family up to and including the Second World War. Interspersed is the narrative of one of the brothers (which one?) in 1956 London, who has received first word in ten years from one of the girls (which one?).

It is a rattling good yarn (though it takes inspiration from Elton’s own family history), well plotted and well researched, which gives an unsettling account of drip fed anti-Semitism in pre-war Germany while presenting individual Jewish resistance in a more positive light than the norm. Some of the dialogue rings a tad modern for the era, but that may be unconventional rather than inaccurate.

It is long at 500+ pages, but reads a good deal shorter being both informative and entertaining.

If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things – Jon McGregor

The scene is set – a summer day in a suburban street in any town; the cast is as varied as to be expected. The old coping with their age; the middle-aged caring for their assets, painting the house, washing the car; young married couples snatching time while the kids play out, or play up; students killing time while they pack up to move on.

All of them watching each other with mild curiosity, observing superficial comings and goings without realising what lies beneath, things held inside, things not spoken to friends, partners and parents, never mind neighbours. It is just a day, unremarkable until late afternoon when something happens to stun the residents and send them all out onto the street in alarm.

One resident we get to know better. The day on the street is interspersed with her life in the few years afterwards. And that too is riddled with things not said; by her and to her.

It is a device that draws the reader in, generating an oscillating desire to get back to the street or to the girl’s story. The secrets of both are slowly and skilfully revealed. Signs are there, but can be misread.

Ironopolis – Glen James Brown

The book consists of six narratives spanning five decades of life in a struggling Teesside community.  It is struggling with poverty, poor housing, declining industry, unemployment, crime and anti-social behaviour. At least that is the external face; within the community are some decent folk making the best they can day to day with vibrancy and undue optimism.

In addition to location other threads link the narratives: common characters (at various stages of their lives), legendary events (seen from multiple perspectives), even a mythical creature that haunts the subterranean waterways and misty banks of the Tees (and the imagination of the locals).  The threads weave into a beguiling tapestry that may, or may not, reveal hidden truths.

Though the nature of truths and facts is a theme too; whose truth, whose facts?  The unreliability of memory and the existence of an ever-evolving local folklore underlie each engrossing tale, each told with a different, convincing yet articulate, voice that makes for effortless reading.

The only problem is the compulsion to keep reading and the conflicting desire to never reach the end.