A Family Madness

by Thomas Keneally

The fatal and desperate politics of Eastern Europe collide with the comparative innocence and complacency of suburban Australian life in this powerful and disturbing love story about two families and the madness that invades their lives.

Terry Delaney's comfortable life is upset when he falls in love with Danielle Kabbel, daughter of charismatic emigre Rudi Kabbel, and succumbs to Rudi's obsessive visions of approaching doom.

Genres: Fiction, Australia

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Thomas Michael Keneally, AO (born 7 October 1935) is an Australian novelist, playwright and author of non-fiction. He is best known for writing Schindler's Ark, the Booker Prize-winning novel of 1982, which was inspired by the efforts of Poldek Pfefferberg, a Holocaust survivor. The book would later be adapted to Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Often published under the name Tom Keneally in Australia.

Life and Career:

Born in Sydney, Keneally was educated at St Patrick's College, Strathfield, where a writing prize was named after him. He entered St Patrick's Seminary, Manly to train as a Catholic priest but left before his ordination. He worked as a Sydney schoolteacher before his success as a novelist, and he was a lecturer at the University of New England (1968–70). He has also written screenplays, memoirs and non-fiction books.

Keneally was known as "Mick" until 1964 but began using the name Thomas when he started publishing, after advice from his publisher to use what was really his first name. He is most famous for his Schindler's Ark (1982) (later republished as Schindler's List), which won the Booker Prize and is the basis of the film Schindler's List (1993). Many of his novels are reworkings of historical material, although modern in their psychology and style.

Keneally has also acted in a handful of films. He had a small role in The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (based on his novel) and played Father Marshall in the Fred Schepisi movie, The Devil's Playground (1976) (not to be confused with a similarly-titled documentary by Lucy Walker about the Amish rite of passage called rumspringa).

In 1983, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO). He is an Australian Living Treasure.

He is a strong advocate of the Australian republic, meaning the severing of all ties with the British monarchy, and published a book on the subject in Our Republic (1993). Several of his Republican essays appear on the web site of the Australian Republican Movement.

Keneally is a keen supporter of rugby league football, in particular the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles club of the NRL. He made an appearance in the rugby league drama film The Final Winter (2007).

In March 2009, the Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, gave an autographed copy of Keneally's Lincoln biography to President Barack Obama as a state gift.

Most recently Thomas Keneally featured as a writer in the critically acclaimed Australian drama, Our Sunburnt Country.

Thomas Keneally's nephew Ben is married to the former NSW Premier, Kristina Keneally.

Reviews

[Hugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was prompted to get hold of this book by Sonya's recommendation after I read Keneally's The Office Of Innocence earlier this year. For me this one was not quite as good, but it is still impressive, particularly Keneally's deep knowledge of his source material.

This book centres on Terry Delaney, a semi-professional rugby league player whose other job as a security guard brings him into contact with a tight-knit family whose father Rudi Kabbel's childhood was spent in Nazi occupied Belarus. The Australian part of the story alternates with the war memories of Rudi's father, a fairly senior figure in Belarus's puppet government of the time, and Rudi's own memories. The modern story sees Delaney, a married man, becoming involved with Rudi's daughter Danielle. Both stories are full of escalating tensions and complicated morality, and build to violent conclusions.

Another book that demonstrates Keneally's versatility and an interesting one to read.

[Calzean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thomas Keneally seems to be able to write on any topic, any time period and include a wealth of historical facts. In this book he covers Belorussians working with Germany during WWII. For their willingness to support the Jewish solution Germany has offered them independence at some point. The family featured in WWII eventually move to Australia where they form a cult-like family preparing for an Armageddon. The two stories were interesting but I think the use of diary and letter extracts did not work well with the alternate chapters of live in Sydney 1980s.

[Danial Tanvir · Rating 1 out of 5]

what a stupid and a miserable book this is.
this maybe one of the worst book i have ever read.
the start of the book is based in the 1980's and the rest in the 1940's and then again in the 1980's.
it is about rudi kabbel who is a survivor of nazi-occupied belorussia.
there is a man called terry delaney who is a rugby player from sydney ,australia.
he then falls in love with rudi kabbels daughter called danielle kebbel.
she is a beautiful young woman.
and terry delaney wants to marry her as he is in love with her.
it is about the independence of belorussia.
the rest of the novel is all about the love affair between tarry delaney and danielle kabbel.
this book was a disaster.
i read it once and i read it quickly without understanding it so i had a compulsion to read it again so i had to read it again as i have OCD(obsessive compulsive disorder)and then i had the compulsion to read it again twice but i did not read it again as my mother told me not to.
in the end i had to read the authors note.

[Liam Ostermann]

Purchased and waiting to read - Keneally is an odd author - I wasn't overwhelmed by 'Schindler's List' but loved his 'Gossip From the Forest' and it is only because of how much I admired the later that I didn't regret, instantly, my purchase when I discovered that Keneally acknowledges a debt to 'The Belarus Secret' by John Loftus (he is always keen to insert 'attorney' which he also invariably capitalises in front of his name, but is otherwise singularly free of the skills, particularly archival research and languages which you might think were a prerequisite for researching and writing about places like Belarus in and immediately after WWII).

For those who don't know how dubious a source of historical veracity Mr.Loftus is, I provide the full latest updated title for this book:

'America's Nazi Secret: An Insider's History of How the United States Department of Justice Obstructed Congress by: Blocking Congressional Investigations into Famous American Families Who Funded Hitler, Stalin and Arab Terrorists; Lying to Congress, the GAO, and the CIA about the Postwar Immigration of Eastern European Nazi War Criminals to the US; and Concealing from the 9/11 Investigators the Role of the Arab Nazi War Criminals in Recruiting Modern Middle Eastern Terrorist Groups'

Previous to 9/11 his books concentrated purely of Nazi's, rich American like the Bush and Rockefeller's; rich German industrialists, such as Thyssen; the Dutch Royal Family and the Vatican and how they had all betrayed the Jews. The Arab Nazi war criminals/terrorists was a late addition to his conspiracy portfolio and resulted in his revelation in 2005 on Fox News (where else) of the address of an Arab terrorist named Iyad Hilal. Not only was Hilal not a terrorist wanted by any criminal or intelligence service anywhere (not even for questioning) but hadn't lived in that address for three years. The result was a nightmare for the family who lived there who needed police protection from vigilanties stalking their house and threatening to kidnap their children. Loftus was dropped by Fox News for his 'error' - unfortunately today he probably wouldn't be.

The point of all this is to say that the historical foundations for this book, unlike 'Gossip in the Forest' or 'Schindler's List' is dubiously nugatory to say the least.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book on my mother's shelf, and having seen and liked the film Schindler's List, wanted to see what the author of that book was like. This work shares some of the same themes with SL, which I haven't read, but it is remarkably different and, well, remarkable. The key theme is dealing with one's past, and the way that interpretation changes with time, and affects later generations. These are two twining plots, one set in present-day Australia involving a rugby player and a woman. The other plot concerns what happened to that woman's father and grandfather back in Belorussia during WWII. There are places where the writing positively shines, so this man can put his words together. Sometimes that facility with language isn't matched by plotting skill, but in this case when you get to the end you see he was guiding us somewhere all along. So a good read, also one that will appeal to my male reading friends. Not only are there ample rugby references, male readers may relate to the character 'urinating grandly like Adam from the edge of the rock'.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Borrowed book from a friend while on holiday as I ran out of reading material. The book reads like two, or possibly three books squeezed into one, as though Keneally threw the basis of what 'could have been' into a mish mash of unrelated narratives. I found the format distracting which did not allow the full development of the underlying themes. I'm still struggling to understand what a rugby league player in '80s NSW has to do with destructive politics & powers of WWII. The only saving grace is Keneally's powerfully emotive & colourfully descriptive style of prose...

[Sonya · Rating 4 out of 5]

This taut and gripping novel delves into the warped politics of Nazi collaboration during WWII, juxtaposed with 1980s Australia, both narrative tracks marking the obsessions of love and vengeance. The characters are alive on the page, each voice distinct, and I'd categorize its tone as literary over cinematic. Don't seek anything that might give the plot away--just read the novel and appreciate its author's fine craft.

[John Newcomb · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was all a bit heavy as a Professional Rugby League player in the 1980s comes across a Belorussian family damaged by patriotism, collaboration and war crimes that occurred 40 years earlier. Very powerful and very sad.

[Miles · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book Second World War Eastern European Belarusan nationalism meets Australian league rugby and suburban angst.

The portrayal of the obscure self-justifying struggles of Belarusan nationalists, cooperating with the Nazis and the Soviets, trying to carve out their own nation, casually dismissing their participation in the slaughter of Jews (that's my family they are talking about.... my recent Jewish ancestors lived in Belarus and many were killed there by Nazis, probably aided by Belarusan nationals) is all very interesting.

We've all probably read about the war from the German perspective, but an Eastern European small nation perspective is different, and enlightening.

The interleaved second story of the book is set in Australia, where a minor league Australian rugby player, Terry Delaney, works out his marriage and an affair with the daughter of some Belarusan refugees, who have carried the madness of the war years into their modern sunny Australian reality.

The book is a mixed bag. I found it difficult, as I always do, to keep all the characters in my head. It is obvious that the Belarusan tale is going to eventually collide with the Australian tale, but the use of nicknames and lack of explicit stage directions made me unsure of how the modern day characters were related to the Second World War characters. In the end one can figure it out, but it takes some work, and perhaps even a second reading if you are slow about such things, as I am.

The author also wrote "Schindler's List" and knowing that tells you something about where his heart is. I don't know Keneally's biography, but surely he must have been in Europe in those years. He writes like a native. The Belarusan half of the novel feels intensely real, almost documentary, in the best sense, and the reader really learns something about a world and its attitudes. I did not find that the Australian suburban rugby-playing marriage-adulterating booze-drinking apocalypse -awaiting modern world was equally well-drawn, or enlightening.

So, yes, if you have a hankering to really get a new look at small time Eastern European nationalist politics under the Germans and Soviets, this book is actually quite interesting. I did not find the contrast with suburban Australia to add very much. The book was interesting, but not compelling.

[Iona Stewart · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought the book cheap in a library sale.

I found it readable though I didn’t really know what was happening or who the various characters were. It was hard to make sense of the book.

The first part, at least, takes place in Belorussia or Bela Rus, though Australia was somehow involved.

Then we got to a section ostensibly written by Radislaw Kabbel, about the history of the Kabbelski family.There are also extracts from the journals of Stanislaw Kabbelski, Chief of Police. He may have been Radislaw’s father. What is described takes place in the early 1940s, that is, during the Second World War.

At one point I realized it dealt with a family with Fascist sympathies, This is the first book I’ve read portraying Fascists as normal people with normal feelings, who loved their children (though they hated and did away with Jews).

One of the main characters in this section is Oberführer Ganz, referred to as Onkel Willi, apparently, a pedophile, who is portrayed as a very kind and loving man.

The Germans described generally disposed of people, for instance Jews, by blowing them up. Onkel Willi is the character I most bonded with, by being such a wonderful man that everyone loved, though he too eventually has the same fate

The story is told from the viewpoint of Radislaw Kabbel as a little boy. He has a sister called Genia.

I found the book confused and confusing, since I prefer to be told directly who is who and to not have to work everything out myself, which is not my forte.

One of the main characters, Delaney, is a detective, who plays some sort of football; descriptions of the various games were boring and incomprehensible to me.

The latter part of the book apparently takes place in Australia.

We hear about Danielle and Galina, whoever they are, and whomever they are married to.

To sum up, for some strange reason I found the book eminently readable though exceedingly convoluted and thus incomprehensible. I can’t recommend it: read it at your peril.

However, I may well read Schindler’s Ark by the same author since I saw the film and greatly appreciated it.

My apologies if I have written anything that is incorrect. The book could well have done with a family tree, or explanation of who is who.

[Velvetink · Rating 3 out of 5]

I mistakenly grabbed this off the library shelf thinking it was set in Kempsey (A River Town). It was not. However, Keneally explores in this novel, the effects of history, specifically the violent history of Belorussia during World War II, on our historical present, specifically suburban Sydney. As in his far more famous Schindler's List, no one is completely good or evil; there are admirable Nazis and detestable police men.

[Greta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another winner from down under by Thomas Keneally. There were more switchbacks than on the Hwy 211 or Albee Creek road from the Albee Creek campground to Cape Mendicino on the Pacific Ocean. It's complicated, but I enjoyed both rides.

[Frances Canning · Rating 3 out of 5]

A difficult book to review. A few chapters in, I realised I'd read it before, but only one detail stood out in my mind - the massacre of almost half a town's population (i.e. most of its Jews), being referred to only in passing, as a 'model'action, so efficient that observers were being sent from other towns to watch.

That gives an indication of the writer's style. It reminds me of Le Carré, in that it is cryptic and it takes quite a lot of work to understand exactly what is being said. I read many paragraphs several times and could never have read this on a Kindle, so often did I have to leaf back through the chapters.

There are two major stories running concurrently -one tells of a more than willing Nazi SS collaborator from Belarussia, and the wartime traumas suffered by his young son, Rudi. It is odd indeed to see the planning and execution of savage atrocities described dispassionately from the point of view of those who planned and oversaw them. One almost has sympathy for those few with more compassion (Willy Ganz wants gold teeth left in place and no sodomising of children at the massacre for example), before realising that these people too are facilitating hideous slaughter of innocents. To make it easier on the executioners, who had an unreasonably heavy workload, they were to be given drink before and after, and any sadism they wish to inflict should be indulged as a perk of the job. These are my words because Keneally uses such an indirect and dry style. This story is conveyed by diary, journal and letters.

At the same time runs a story of Rudi, now grown in 1980s Australia. This is a narrative from the point of view of Delaney, a security guard/rugby player, who falls heavily for Danielle, Rudi's daughter. This throws into relief the post traumatic stress disorder of Rudi which lasts his lifetime, and how utterly nil is the understanding of it by the people among whom he settles. There is a lot of rugby detail which caused me to lose concentration completely.

I hugely admire the cleverness of the writing style but am not sure it worked for me. I kept missing important details and still feel an awful lot passed me by - partly because the style was so cryptic. Also there was so much detail included, much of which seemed extraneous to me, that I often found it hard to stay focussed. I was uncomfortable with the interweaving of the two stories. It seemed to reduce the horrific choices made by Stanislaw, Rudi's VIP police chief father, to a rather trivial sideshow, constantly interrupted by rugby games, sex in hotel rooms and so on. A very interesting novel, but hard work.

[ErnstG · Rating 2 out of 5]

In 198 in Sydney a family of 5 ''willingly ended their lives''. This ''had its roots in events . . . during world war 2''. After this statement the book contains a disclaimer re real people etc.

The book is constructed of 2 interleaved streams. The overlap between these is a man who was a Belorussian child in the 1940s and an Australian immigrant in the 1980.

The 1940s stream deals with the politics in a would-be Belorussian political entity, trying to get legitimacy from the German occupiers while the Soviet counter-offensive gets closer and closer. In the end the would-be republican Government flees with the Germans as collaborators before, through the workings of the DP camps, they are resettled to various countries. In our case, Australia.

The 1980s strand of the story deals with a small security firm run by the immigrant and his 3 adult Australian children. These, and a baby, are the 5 participants in the tragedy.

The 1940s strand is excellent (which is why I picked it up again). No doubt it rests on the research and thinking that Keneally did for Schindler's Ark. The 1980s strand is utterly unconvincing -- some of the local colour (NSW policing, Rugby League) serves to place the observer, but the schizophrenia that readers are encouraged to believe lay at the heart of the tragedy just doesn't cut the mustard.

In all this glumness, the immigrant's sister points to an alternative way. She leaves the DP camp with a French sergeant and by all accounts has a happy life with him. ''What I was attracted to was that he was not a tragic and dedicated figure. He did not believe in tragedy, he did not pick his wounds like the Belorussians. [...] He already saw a future [...] in which we lived well and had no politics. To me, he was the liberation. He did not propose endless returns and exiles, coalitions, changed names, midnight flights. He promised a good time, and unlike most other men in the world, he delivered it.'' (p295)

[Bikerpaul68 · Rating 3 out of 5]

My opinion of this novel is probably coloured by my reason for reading it: I found out that the main character, Terry Delaney, is a semi-professional rugby league player, and I was probably expecting an Australian version of David Storey's novel "This Sporting Life". As it turns out, Delaney's second job has very little to do with the plot. His employer, Rudi Kabbel, grew up in White Russia during the second world war, and Rudi's story is told by Rudi himself and in Rudi's translation of his father's diaries. This story alternates with Delaney's, but contains an overwhelming amount of detail about factional struggles within the White Russian population. Although some of these details are relevant to the Kabbel family history, I found them tiresome and got the impression they were used to pad out the book and delay the climax of Delaney's story.
In summary, although Keneally writes well and perceptively, I think this book would have been improved by shortening it. It includes also an irrelevant and distasteful account of Delaney and his team-mates on a drunken night out in a brothel and bar; this could and should have been removed entirely.

[Robert Ditterich · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very clever novel, but bleak. If not for the interesting fictionalised historical account of the struggle of the Belarus people during the occupation by (and collaboration with) Germany in the early 1940's, and the attempted reinvention/mutation of their paradigm, from being nationalist/fascist to nationalist/anti-soviet and finally to being pro-Allied Powers, I would have been unlikely to finish the book. The plot appears to be two distantly related strands of narrative set apart in time and place but it is wickedly and nimbly drawn together in the final pages.

[Moirad · Rating 3 out of 5]

2 Australias clash - a rugby league playing, underachieving young man becomes involved with a family of Belorussian heritage through his work as a security guard. Extracts from narratives of this family's history during WWII, when they played the Russians and Germans against each other futilely to further Belorussian independence, go some way to explain the book's title. Powerful and well written.

[Caz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure what to make of this. Well written, esp about Belarus during the Second World War. Mix of narrative, diary extracts, letters, sports reports etc to tell the story. I found myself skim reading parts of this as I felt some of the detail was unnecessary, and it made the story heavy going in places. There was a lot going on in this book. I think I might need to read this again sometime.

[Del Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyable. Most families are a bit crazy so this one is very relatable. Falling in love with someone from an especially crazy family is fraught with danger. This was my first Kenneally outing and I'll definitely be back for more.

[Caroline · Rating 2 out of 5]

couldn't get past the first 50 pages - just awful

[Pepita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Illuminating re the ever changing politics and borders of European countries during World war and the everlasting effects even after emigration.

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cause and effect over 50 years from Minsk to Penrith. Keneally attempts what I would have considered the impossible and very nearly pulls it off.

[Iain Crawford · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not keen on timeshifts so this wasn't for me. The back and fore between 1940s and 1980s slowed the pace.

[Julie]

I'm really struggling to follow the plot in this book. It flips from WW2 to the present from one character to another frequently and leaves me baffled at times. A bit disappointed as I usuallly like Thomas Keneally's novels. I am enjoying however the political background around Belorussia during the later stages of the war. I'm hoping that the connection the present day aspects will be revealed towards the end of the novel otherwise I don't see the point.

[David Becker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Keneally has a particular gift for making history personal (and mightily compelling). This novel switches back-and-forth between present-day Australia and World War II Belarus. The Belarussian struggle for independence may not sound like a fountain of inspiration, but in Keneally's hands it's the stuff of grand drama and intense personal revelation. The lines between hero and madmen, patriot and fool, constantly get smudged. The novel was written before the collapse of the Soviet Union, and knowing that outcome seems to make the sacrifices in the book all the more tragic.

[Liesl McQuillan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book by a great writer.