Act of Oblivion
by Robert Harris
☆ Shortlisted for the 2023 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction
New historical novels by British writer Robert Harris are always worth looking out for so don’t let the blitz of marketing surrounding his latest, Act of Oblivion, put you off. It’s set at an interesting point in English history: the immediate aftermath of the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660. Through the reflections of one of the main characters, we see the events leading up to the execution of Charles I more than a decade previously, in 1649, as well as the battles of the English Civil War and Oliver Cromwell‘s New Model Army. Puritan America is also an important part of the setting. If you’re interested in history and don’t know the details of this period, it’s an interesting book, not least because you can’t help but reflect on what it takes to tip a country into civil war.
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The multimillion copy-selling author of Fatherland and The Ghost returns with a new historical novel set in New England during the 17th century. In it, two exiled English colonels—once signatories to Charles I’s warrant of execution—have fled to the American colony following the Restoration of the monarchy at home. It’s a fictionalised account that draws from documentary materials but invents characters and imagines scenarios. The Walter Scott Prize judges praised Harris’s “sinewy prose” and his ability to “plant the reader directly into the time and place of the story.” It’s “the work of a magnificent storyteller at the height of his game.”
Best Historical Fiction of 2023: The Walter Scott Prize Shortlist
