A Place in the Country

Vienna trilogy #2

by Sarah Gainham

In the aftermath of the Second World War, Vienna is a crucible of fear and superstition, tense with the beginnings of the Cold War and rife with double agents. Robert Inglis, a young British army officer, has been posted to the ruined city to assist in restoring order and control. In the bitter cold of that post-war winter, a mystery railway wagon arrives from the east carrying a cargo of starving, half-dead men, among them the talented journalist Georg Kerenyi. Inglis forms an uneasy friendship with Kerenyi, and it is through him that he meets and is captivated by Julia Homburg, once the star of Vienna's theatre and now hidden away in the Austrian countryside, engaged in her private struggle to overcome the sorrow and devastation of the war.

Genres: Historical Fiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Rachel Stainer was a much-admired foreign correspondent for the "Spectator" magazine reporting from Vienna, Berlin, Bonn and Trieste. She wrote novels under the pseudonym Sarah Gainham most notably her 1967 novel "Night Falls on the City," the first of a trilogy about life in Vienna under Nazi rule.

Reviews

[Eva Robey]

I stopped reading this, for the moment anyway.
I loved Night Falls On The City, but this doesn’t resonate so much for me.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second book in a trilogy, written by a woman who was the Central European correspondent for various British publications during the 1950s. The first book "Night Falls on the City" is the story of a prominent Austrian theatre actress, married to an equally-well-known Jewish socialist politician in prewar Austria, and the couple's travails in the period 1938-45.

"A Place in the Country" is the sequel to that book, written from the perspective of an English officer in the occupation forces in southern Austria in the years following the Second World War. The author paints an excellent picture of postwar Austria under occupation by the four Allied powers and presents a credible plot that maintains the reader's interest throughout. Like the first novel in the trilogy, this one is more atmosphere than plot, but the atmosphere in itself is enough.

I only gave this book 3 stars because the language in many spots is quite convoluted, even for something that was written 50 years ago. The author's verbal gymnastics at times makes it difficult to discern exactly what she is trying to say.

Having made that critical observation, I still found this book quite readable, to the extent that I look forward to reading the third book in the trilogy, "Private Worlds."

[S.P. Moss · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s some years since I read “Night Falls on the City”, so it took me a while to reaquaint myself with the events and characters of that novel, and find myself back in mid-20th century Austria.

“A Place in the Country” follows the charismatic actress Julia “Julie” Homburg and her circle - those that are left - through the eyes of a new character. Robert Inglis is a young British Captain acting as an interpreter in a holding unit for repatriated POWs in the bleak winter of 1946/7.

Like the previous book, “A Place in the Country” works as a historical chronicle shot through with personal stories as a country and lives rebuild in the aftermath of WW2. It’s the era of accountability and denazification, shifting alliances amongst the occupying powers, and the beginnings of the Cold War in Europe and later, the Far East.

The key themes of the novel are those of responsibility, personal loyalty, survival of trauma, freedom and being on the “right” side of history (or not) - very apt today in 2022, too. I was gripped more and more as the novel progressed. It is intelligently-written, with beautiful prose in places and complex and captivating characters. I expect I won’t leave it so long before I read the final part of the trilogy.

[CQM · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent in parts, uneven as a whole. Keen as I was to learn the fates of Julia, Kerenyi and others from the first book it was the new characters that held my interest most in this one. The narrator, a young English officer translating in a camp for deserters, escaping war criminals and displaced people in post war Vienna, Robert Inglis is personable and his fellow officers interesting but the real star of the show is David Stephenson. Stephenson is an alcoholic, secretly gay, Russian sympathising officer who moves to the foreign office and causes chaos wherever he goes. I'm not sure if he's based on Guy Burgess or not but that's who I pictured whenever he was on the scene. Just a shame he drops in and out of the story so much. There was some genuine tension in the interrogation chapters and subsequent secret moving of prisoners that made me wish this had leaned more heavily in that particular direction.

[Meredith · Rating 3 out of 5]

The sequel to Night Falls on the City, Gainham's magnificent tale of life in occupied Vienna following the Anschluss, A Place in the Country fails to equal the drama of its predecessor. While the same cast of characters is present, with some additions, it is not a compelling read and it meanders through fields of turgid prose on its way to its conclusion. I don't think I will be looking for the third in this series.

[Dave Allan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book as a sequel. It's refreshing to read a writing style from 50 years ago. Her subject matter over this sequel and the first book is of a brutal and harrowing time. The way she covers that time was so interesting and gave me a different perspective on what it was like for the people living through it.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not at all what I expected. It only occasionally touched upon the "place in the country". It rambled all over the world, all over the characters, and all over subjects. I kept waiting for it to go somewhere that I expected, but it never did. Guess I really never did decide what I really thought about it!

[Zeba Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gripping

Woven together are tales of men and women recovering from the cataclysm of World War 2, the emergence of the Cold War and the murky world of espionage and betrayal. With references to the defections of Burgess, Maclean and Philby, Catch 22 and the complexities of reconstruction of economies and human lives, this is a compassionate and complex tale that moves on from Gainham’s masterful depiction of wartime Vienna, Night Falls on the City. Compelling and immersive.