The Castle in the Forest (2007)

Norman Mailer's last novel, published the same year he died, is a real doozy—I mean that in all best ways. To start, it's one culmination of a cosmology he had been discussing as asides since at least the '60s. The idea is that God is not entirely omnipotent, and probably not so omniscient or even that beneficent either. But he's the best bet we've got against Satan, who is more or less God's equal, as they are at war, perhaps without end. It's much more detailed here, and in fact the operations of both God and Satan happen to look quite a bit like the day-to-day work of intelligence agencies. There's a constant game of recruitment and betrayal going on. The story is told from the point of view of a demon—a gofer, midlevel at best, perhaps more like a foot soldier one step above a courier. Satan is referred to as "the Maestro" (though that may not be Satan but only a high-level director) (and never mind about that Seinfeld episode!) and God as "D.K.," which stands for dummkopf. The story is Adolf Hitler's childhood and early adolescence. It ends when he has reached the age of 14, and all history is still in front of him. Now this turns out to be a monstrously rich vein for Mailer to work, starting with Hitler's mysterious paternal grandfather, who is unknown. At one point certain rumors indicated he might have been a Jew, but that has been debunked. I checked with Wikipedia regularly for some idea of where history leaves off and Mailer's imagination takes over. Much of this story appears to be factual. The line of thought Mailer is intrigued by—perhaps not surprisingly for him—is the possibility of incest. He suggests some German Nazis may have believed incest purified and strengthened genetic lines, even though it comes with the hazard of grotesquely disabled heirs. I'm not actually sure Nazis believed in incest that way, but things are certainly complicated in that particular corner of Hitler's family. There's enough plausibility for Mailer to make something of it. The Castle in the Forest is otherwise a harrowing story just on the known facts, though not so different from many 19th-century families. Hitler's mother Klara was his father Alois's third wife, and Adolf had two older stepsiblings. Alois was about 15 years older than Klara. Their first three children died before the age of 5, all within months of one another. They had three more—Adolf, a brother Edmund who died as a child, and a sister Paula who was developmentally disabled. Mailer takes every opportunity here to hold forth on demon ways and much is funny, inspired, or both. If the dummkopf nickname is pretty good, calling angels "cudgels" is nearly as good. But mostly I liked this visit to the specter of Adolf Hitler, who remains one of history's most mysterious figures. The novel is based on a ton of research. A bibliography at the back attests to that, though my Wikipedia sessions had already confirmed it in a general way. The Castle in the Forest is definitely one to get to if you're interested in Mailer.

In case it's not at the library.