Parahistorical fiction involves the exploration of an alternate historical reality, an investigation into a “what if?” scenario that would change the face of the world. What if the South had won the Civil War? What if the Nazis stopped at the continent’s edge in World War II? It’s a fascinating genre with examples that reach far into the past, and which contains both the hackiest of writers and some of our literary lights – witness Philip Roth’s THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA.

Jo Walton’s FARTHING also should be grouped in the latter category, as it is a serious exploration of a scenario that we should all be glad never came to pass. The setting is 1949, and England has survived Nazi Germany’s terrible onslaught against the European continent, but only at a very severe price. Sir James Thirkie has appeased the Nazis by agreeing to terms that Germany gets the continent and can then focus on their battle with the Russians, and England will remain inviolate. He is roundly applauded for bringing peace to the land, and eminences like Winston Churchill are relegated to obscurity.

Of course, with this development, the condition of Jewry throughout the world is gravely threatened. With an isolationist America (at the hands of President Lindbergh, no less, a real-life proponent of not getting involved outside our shores), a Nazified Europe and a distrustful England, Jewish men, women and children remain on the margins of society, with little hope or future.

This is a grim and disturbing book, but Walton doesn’t fall into the trap of painting too bleak a picture upfront. Her horror is much more insidious, subtle, and she ably depicts how generally decent people can somehow, almost unknown to their own selves, slowly sink into the abyss of racism and institutional hatred. Scary stuff, indeed.

Walton writes the book from two different viewpoints, each represented in alternating chapters. One of the viewpoints is that of Lucy Eversley, now married to Jewish banker David Kahn, and related by blood to the powerful Farthing clan. The Farthing family was instrumental in negotiating the appeasement with Germany (I will not deign to call it a “peace”), and Lucy is certainly the black sheep of the family for daring to marry outside her religion. Lucy does not get along with her mother, who despises David, but strangely, they are still invited to the family manse for a weekend. It is on this fateful weekend that Thirkie is found murdered.

Enter the alternative viewpoint of Inspector Peter Anthony Carmichael, who must find the culprit, all the while battling an endemic hatred of Jews that threatens to blame David Kahn for the crime, whether he is innocent or not.

Walton carries off the mystery aspect of the tale very well, though there might be a few too many characters and confusing lines of relationship. Her voice for Lucy Kahn is completely different from that of Carmichael – much more flighty and naïve – but with a hard, no-nonsense core that stays loyal to her husband no matter how beastly her family. And it is this beastliness which Walton brilliantly displays in some of her peripheral characters, the hurtful things they say, the bizarre things they believe, the small little slights that destroy civilization and degrade humanity.

This is not an easy book to read. With anti-Semitism on the rise throughout Europe and the increasing polarization and hardening of factions in our own country and around the world, this book is a smart slap in the face to those who find it all too easy to hate groups of any kind. Walton shows us a world that we have not yet seen, and makes us thankful for men like Churchill and Roosevelt who did not want to see their own values brought subordinate to those of another. A highly recommended work from an accomplished author. –Mark Rose

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