"THE SEPARATION is filled with a sense of the precariousness of history; of small events and choices with extraordinary consequences" - David Langford
"Priest is masterful ... I'm rather flabbergasted" - Goodreads Reviewer
This is a not-so-straightforward story of twin brothers, rowers in the 1936 Olympics. One joins the RAF, and captains a Wellington; he is shot down after a bombing raid on Hamburg and becomes Churchill's aide-de-camp. His twin brother, a pacifist, works with the Red Cross, rescuing bombing victims in London. But the two brothers - both called J.L. Sawyer - live their lives in alternate versions of reality. In one, the Second World War ends as we imagine it did; in the other, thanks to efforts of an eminent team of negotiators headed by Hess (Hitler's deputy), the war ends in 1941.
THE SEPARATION is an account of how one perceives and shapes the past, and is an emotionally riveting story of how an average man can make a difference.
Read More[A] subtle, unsettling alternative WWII history from British author Priest. Many alternative history novels are bloodless extrapolations from mountains of data, but this one quietly builds characters you care about - then leaves their dilemmas unresolved as they try to believe that what they have done is 'right'.An astonishing achievement, the sort of novel that in a saner alternate world might well be a candidate for mainstream awards and bestseller listsOne cannot help but wonder how many discarded alternative personae litter the multiple paths of one's personal history, or histories, and this, for me, is the most disquieting legacy of this remarkable novel