Leaving Fatherland by Matt Graydon

 

Leaving Fatherland

By Matt Graydon

Oskar Bachmann always imagined that giving his first lecture would be the defining moment of his life. It was, but not in the way he expected... Growing up a misfit in Nazi Germany, a victim of his father's beatings, Oskar's love of books is a constant comfort in a world turned upside-down by violence. As a student, as a pilot in the brutal Luftwaffe during the Second World War, in an unhappy marriage to an English bride, he finds himself returning over and over to the circumstances of his childhood. What was the source and cause of his father's abuse? Could there have been more to it than he had once believed? Little did Oskar know that his first lecture at the University of Tubingen would ultimately lead to the end of a lifetime of searching... and finally reveal the figure who had been controlling his life from a distance.

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What can I say about this book other than it was the most brilliant of reads from beginning to end. I found myself drawn into the story and the hours simply flew by as I read this book. The characters are beautifully portrayed, especially Oskar whose life is a constant struggle. 

Leaving Fatherland is a very emotional read and deals with many issues, not just war. There are some scenes that are very upsetting as Oskar endures years of abuse by his father, and they leave a legacy of devastation.

This is a book that you certainly need some tissues close at hand, and it is also one that once read you will never forget.

This book is available on Amazon in the following formats: Kindle, paperback, hardback and audio.

Matt Graydon

Matt Graydon has always written stories, first as a schoolboy, then as a journalist and PR and now, in the culmination of his life’s work, as a writer of striking historical fiction. He likes to explore offbeat perspectives, inspired by true stories, especially in his tales of life in wartime. In his recently published short story, Saigo No Tatakai, his account of a kamikaze attack on a British warship is seen through the eyes of both the pilot’s wife and a Royal Navy sailor who witnessed it up close.  Now, in his first novel, Leaving Fatherland, inspired by a true story, Graydon tells the tale of a liberal German who returns home from his life as a New York university student to fight for the Nazis.

Matt is half-Irish, grew up in a loving but strictly religious home and spent many months in hospital beds as a child. Now he enjoys spending his non-writing time standing in remote fields at night viewing and photographing stars and galaxies through his telescope, or attempting to keep his unruly Surrey garden in check. He lives in the one-pub village of South Nutfield with his wife and daughter, and sometimes son, who easily exceeded his father’s one year stay at university in the 1980s. Oh, and the family Cockapoo, Ozzy, a regular companion under the armchair, inherited from his grandpa, where he writes. Well-travelled, his passion for writing was ignited, at age 21, during a three-month, action-packed, hitch-hike across the USA, when his escapades made great material for an in-depth diary and, perhaps, one day, story.