YOUNG ADOLF AND WATSON's APOLOGY

Critics often divide Beryl Bainbridge's writing into two periods: there are the earlier broadly autobiographical novels and the later historical novels. But this view ignores both the strong thematic continuities throughout Bainbridge's fiction and the existence of two novels that disrupt any sense of smooth transition. Young Adolf (1978) and Watson's Apology (1984) are historical fictions by even the strictest standards, yet they are frequently ignored in favour of a neater summarization; these are transitional novels in that they straddle the two periods of Bainbridge's career, developing themes found throughout her fiction and approaches to historical representation that are particularly prominent in the later work.

The point of departure for Young Adolf are the memoirs of Bridget Hitler (née Dowling), the wife of Adolf Hitler's halfbrother, Alois, who lived in Liverpool. It was Bainbridge's friend and former editor of the Liverpool Post, Michael Unger who drew her attention to the existence of the memoirs and, her interest piqued, Bainbridge visited the New York Public Library, where the manuscript is held. These are her remarks on the memoir, taken from the ‘Characters in books’ notebook held in the British Library's collection of Bainbridge's papers: ‘All of it could have been got from magazines at the time except the bit about her and Alois Hitler (her husband) going to Lime St. Station in 1912 to meet her sister Angela off the train. She said Adolf came instead. It reads as if true.’ The ‘as if’ is important here because even Unger, who edited an edition of the memoirs, admits that it is ‘likely’ that Bridget invented the visit ‘in order to place Hitler under some obligation and thus get money for her and her child’. And Bainbridge has herself confessed that she is ‘sure’ it did not happen, adding that ‘the daft thing is that you go to Liverpool and everybody says ‘‘you know Adolf Hitler was here’’’ (Marsh).