"A few days ago I asked an American acquaintance as one does these days where he sees it, by which I meant the political situation, heading. He took a breath. In my opinion, the US is in a very similar position to Germany in 1933-4, he said. And we have to ask, could 1936, 1937, 1938 have been avoided? That's the point we are at. You can try to say fascism couldn't happen in the US. But I think the jury's out."
"His words seemed especially resonant to me because I had just finished reading a remarkable novel precisely to do with Germany in 1933-4, a book written in the former year and published in the latter. Forgotten for decades, Sally Carson's Bavaria-set Crooked Cross was republished in April by Persephone Books, which specialises in reviving neglected works. Since then, it has been a surprise hit, a word-of-mouth jaw-dropper, passed from hand to hand."
"The setting is the little, fictional Bavarian town of Kranach, a picture-postcard place in the foothills of the Alps. Its focus is the Kluger family a modest, middle-class clan of kindly, loving parents and three grown-up children, Helmy, Lexa and Erich who are gathering to celebrate Christmas with their cousins and Lexa's fiance, Moritz. Everything is warm and delightful and full of promise: the tree with its glass baubles and candles, the tissue-wrapped presents, the carols, the roasted goose."
An American acquaintance compared the United States to Germany in 1933–34 and questioned whether the later years of 1936–38 could have been avoided, suggesting the possibility of fascism in the US remains unresolved. A Bavaria-set novel titled Crooked Cross was republished by Persephone Books and became a surprise, word-of-mouth success. Crooked Cross begins in December 1932 and ends in midsummer 1933, centring on the Kluger family in the small town of Kranach and juxtaposing warm domestic Christmas scenes with an emerging political menace symbolised by a portrait of Hitler on the piano. The work formed a trilogy published by 1938 and was later rediscovered via an academic reference.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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