Young Adolf: A Novel

Beryl Bainbridge

Nov. 2016 · Open Road Media

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A darkly humorous fictionalized account of Adolf Hitler’s alleged stay in England as a young man.

Before becoming the Führer of the Third Reich, it is said Adolf Hitler was a failed artist who bummed around at his half-brother’s house in Liverpool from 1912 to 1913. Based on the memoir of the future despot’s sister-in-law, Bridget Hitler, Young Adolf is a vivid imagining of this alleged visit to the United Kingdom.
 
The story begins with Adolf aboard a ferry, aiming to avoid Austrian military service. He has no luggage, save for a book, and holds a false passport made out in the name of his dead brother, paranoid that the authorities might be tailing him. But what Adolf should be worried about is how he will be received at his destination. At the train station, his brother Alois greets him with outrage. Alois had sent money for their sister Angela to travel to Liverpool, but Adolf stole the funds.
 
Taking refuge on the sofa for days, Adolf makes only one friend: Jewish landlord Mr. Meyer, surprisingly enough. With mutual interests in opera and architecture, the two become close, though Adolf does mention his thoughts on race relations and “contaminated blood.” Eventually, under pressure, Adolf stops loafing and gets a menial job. Most people think he won’t ever amount to much, but it’s clear that Adolf has bigger aspirations.
 
Originally published in 1978, this was the first foray into historical fiction for award-winning author Beryl Bainbridge, who would become famous for works like Master Georgie and the bestselling Every Man for Himself. Combining dark humor and psychological intrigue, Young Adolf is a portrait of both a man and a city before two World Wars changed everything.

 

Autoren-Profil

Dame Beryl Bainbridge (1932–2010) is acknowledged as one of the greatest British novelists of her time. She was the author of two travel books, five plays, and seventeen novels, five of which were shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, including Master Georgie, which went on to win the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the WHSmith Literary Award. She was also awarded the Whitbread Literary Award twice, for Injury Time and Every Man for Himself. In 2011, a special Man Booker “Best of Beryl” Prize was awarded in her honor, voted for by members of the public.
 
Born in Liverpool and raised in nearby Formby, Bainbridge spent her early years working as an actress, leaving the theater to have her first child. Her first novel, Harriet Said . . ., was written around this time, although it was rejected by several publishers who found it “indecent.” Her first published works were Another Part of the Wood and An Awfully Big Adventure, and many of her early novels retell her Liverpudlian childhood. A number of her books have been adapted for the screen, most notably An Awfully Big Adventure, which is set in provincial theater and was made into a film by Mike Newell, starring Alan Rickman and Hugh Grant. She later turned to more historical themes, such as the Scott Expedition in The Birthday Boys, a retelling of the Titanic story in Every Man for Himself, and Master Georgie, which follows Liverpudlians during the Crimean War. Her no-word-wasted style and tight plotting have won her critical acclaim and a committed following. Bainbridge regularly contributed articles and reviews to the Guardian, Observer, and Spectator, among others, and she was the Oldie’s longstanding theater critic. In 2008, she appeared at number twenty-six in a list of the fifty most important novelists since 1945 compiled by the Times (London). At the time of her death, Bainbridge was working on a new novel, The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress, which was published posthumously.