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Vienna, 1938. Beautiful actress Julia Homburg and her politician husband Franz Wedeker embody all the enlightened brilliance of their native city. But Wedeker is Jewish, and just across the border the tanks of the Nazi Reich are primed for the Anschluss.
When the SS invades and disappearances become routine, Franz must be concealed. With daring ingenuity, Julia conjures a hiding place. In the shadow of oppression, a clear conscience is a luxury few can afford, and Julia finds she must strike a series of hateful bargains with the new order if she and her husband are to survive.
A highly acclaimed bestseller when first published in the 1960s, Night Falls on the City is a true lost classic, and an unforgettable portrait of wartime.
When the SS invades and disappearances become routine, Franz must be concealed. With daring ingenuity, Julia conjures a hiding place. In the shadow of oppression, a clear conscience is a luxury few can afford, and Julia finds she must strike a series of hateful bargains with the new order if she and her husband are to survive.
A highly acclaimed bestseller when first published in the 1960s, Night Falls on the City is a true lost classic, and an unforgettable portrait of wartime.
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Reviews
A rare novel of beauty and scope and ambition ... without doubt Gainham's masterpiece
It is one of those rare novels of beauty and scope and ambition that succeeds both in bringing to life a particular moment in history, a particular society, while at the same time rejoicing in the minute details of everyday life, everyday emotions...Gainham is excellent at balancing real history with imagination and, without the effort being apparent, lays bare the background which makes it possible for the Nazis to enter Austria without a shot being fired...Night Falls on the City is undoubtedly her masterpiece. A courageous, timely novel that deserves to be better known
Brilliant and moving.
A pleasure to read . . . a compellingly intimate portrait of Vienna from the Anschluss to the end of the Second World War, which captures its atmosphere of fear, mistrust, corruption and ultimate collapse. There are no heroics; instead Sarah Gainham offers a scrupulously detailed story of individuals forced through barbarism into chaos.