Book review: ‘Boy at the Top of the Mountain’ a harrowing tale of Nazi influence

Nearly a decade after the success of “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas,” an exploration of the Holocaust through a story of a friendship between the son of a German officer and a young Jewish prisoner in a death camp, Irish author John Boyne returns with another perspective on World War II.

“The Boy at the Top of the Mountain” follows the travails of Pierrot, a young Paris orphan (his father was German, his mother French) with a Jewish friend, who, after a stint in an orphanage, is sent to live with his aunt, a housekeeper at a large mountain retreat in Austria. We soon realize that the big house on the mountain is Berghof and “the master” is Adolf Hitler himself. There the boy’s name is changed to Pieter and he becomes the protege of the German leader as he grows into a teenage Nazi.

“He remembered the instructions that Aunt Beatrix had given him on dozens of occasions since his arrival and tried to follow them exactly. He stood up straight, snapped his feet together, and clicked his heels once, quickly and loudly. His right arm shot out in the air, five fingers pointing directly ahead, just above the height of his shoulder. Finally, he shouted, in the clearest, most confident voice that he could muster, the two words that he had practiced over and over since his arrival at Berghof.

” ‘Heil Hitler!’ “

A dark tale of betrayal and death, Boyne uses the story to explore how so many fell under the evil spell of the Nazis and the consequences.

“Don’t ever pretend you didn’t know what was going on here … The deaths you have on your conscience … you’re only sixteen. You have many years ahead of you to come to terms with your complicity in these matters. Just don’t ever tell yourself that you didn’t know.”

Like its predecessor, “The Boy at the Top of the Mountain,” is marketed as a book for young adults. Don’t be fooled, the theme is definitely adult.

Lee Scott lives in Avondale.