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Book your seat at Haslemere Library for an afternoon with local author Matt Graydon as he talks about his book Leaving Fatherland
Matt Graydon is “a writer of striking historical fiction” as you’ll discover when he talks about his debut novel Leaving Fatherland at Haslemere Library this month.
Inspired by a true story, Leaving Fatherland provides a different take on what it was like to be in the Luftwaffe during the Second World War. With scenes inspired by real events, it follows book-loving protagonist Oskar from his childhood in Nazi Germany to New York City and beyond, as he struggles to come to terms with his father’s abuse.
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 New York university 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 Tübingen 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.
Author Matt is half-Irish and grew up in a loving but strictly religious home. When not spending his time writing he enjoys standing in remote fields at night gazing and photographing stars and galaxies through his telescope. His passion for writing began at the age of 21 while on a three-month action-packed hike across America.
Leaving Fatherland has been described as a “haunting, thought-provoking narrative” and as “a heart-told story which kept me bound to it right to the last page and well beyond”. Louise Fein, author of Daughter of The Reich calls it a “novel that explores, with compassion and without judgement, complex issues around psychology, identity, loyalty, and how knowing where we come from shapes who we are”.
The session on Friday, 10th January, 2.230-3.30pm, will end with audience questions and a book signing. Suggested donation: £4 per person.
Leaving Fatherland is available at Waterstones, Foyles, Amazon and more.
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