Lucy — Paul Pickering

<p><strong>Paul Pickering's new anti-war novel <em>Lucy</em> is about obedience and rebellion, how one survivor in the actual and moral wasteland of immediate post-war Berlin takes over the lives of three others, psychologically and sexually, in the way Hitler took over a country.</strong></p><p>The worldwide protests surrounding the 2024 conflict in Gaza mirror the rebel spirit at the heart of Pickering's important, groundbreaking novel. Set partly in a German kibbutz, started by Nazis to remove Jews, there is a clash between utopian ideas and the toxic nationalism necessary to found the state of Israel. Operation Lucy, once an idealistic, anti-Nazi espionage ring, of which all the main characters are part, has become a self-devouring monster. </p><p><em>Lucy</em> is darkly comic, showing how best intentions, when they pass through the looking-glass of human failings, change to the opposite. Joseph Heller's "Catch-22" means no escape because of contradictory rules, "Lucy" is the Lucifer paradox, where the only good is bad, and only bad is good.</p><p>A thrilling, disturbing and utterly compelling read from one of the UK's most celebrated authors.</p>