Ever since its publication in 1989, A Question of Loyalties has
been widely regarded as a work of great literary and cultural
significance. Massie dissects the nature of loyalty with great
compassion and an unnerving acuity, as he appraises the devastating
effect of the Second World War on France, not only as a nation, but
also upon the lives of the men and women caught up in the bitter
conflict between those living in occupied France, de Gaulle's
Resistance fighters and Marshal Petain's Vichy government. But this
is, above all, the story of how individuals cope with the
conflicting loyalties forced upon them in times of war; loyalty to
country, family and friends, and how that loyalty can be misplaced
with tragic consequences. Etienne de Balafre has returned to France
in the aftermath of the war, to try and discover the truth about
his father, Lucien. His French grandmother gives him access to his
father's papers, but is strangely reluctant to talk about his final
days, only insisting that he was a hero; his Uncle Armand, Lucien's
brother, is equally evasive. It is Armand's wife, Berthe, who
finally tells him that Lucien killed himself in prison, leaving
Etienne with yet more unanswered questions. Years later, spurred on
by a letter from an American historian who is researching the Vichy
era, Etienne re-examines his father's papers in a new light,
gradually realizing that the man who was eventually regarded as a
traitor and a collaborator was an inherently good man, a sensitive
individual whose dearest wish was to serve his country. Lucien's
idealism is ultimately his downfall - for a man of great literary
vision, he is naively unaware of the dangers awaiting Petain and
his supporters as the rise of Nazism continues inexorably. Caught
up in the plot to assassinate Hitler in July 1944 through his
affection for a young German officer, Lucien has enemies on all
sides. It is only a matter of time before he is betrayed. Massie
has succeeded in combining one man's intensely personal quest to
discover the truth about his father and the bewilderment of an
entire nation torn between the longing for freedom and the desire
to protect its citizens, within one epic masterpiece. This novel
addresses the impossibility of being truly loyal, because the term
itself defies true definition. As Armand says in one of his final
letters to Etienne: 'There is nothing I have found more perplexing
and morally confusing than loyalties.' (Kirkus UK)
Widely acclaimed as Massie's finest novel, A Question of Loyalties
engages with all the complexities and ambiguities of loyalty,
nationality and family as they are put under threat by betrayal, by
errors of judgement, or simply friendship. Etienne de Balafre, half
French, half English and raised in South Africa, returns to
post-war France to unravel the tangled history of his own father.
Was Lucien de Balafre a patriot who served his country as best he
could in difficult times, or a treacherous collaborator in the
Vichy government? Rife with the anguish of hindsight and the irony
of circumstance, this powerful book brilliantly explores the ties
between fathers and sons and the pains of love and duty in a period
of European history that is still characterised by wilful denial
and hatred.
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