The Godfather: Peter Corris on Robert Goddard
Jean introduced me to the work of Robert Goddard when she was working as fiction editor for Transworld and Goddard’s first novel Past Caring (1986) was being heavily promoted by the company. I was mightily impressed by it.
Set in the Edwardian era with the Boer War and the shifting politics of the time as its themes, it told a complicated story of deception, lost love and betrayal. I eagerly awaited Goddard’s next book and wasn’t disappointed. In Pale Battalions (1988) is an extraordinarily evocative story of honour and dishonour and identity confusion during and in the aftermath of World War I.
Goddard’s third book, Painting the Darkness (1989) is the best popular historical novel I know. I’ve read it twice and will probably read it again. Loosely based on the famous Tichborne claimant case in which a person claims to be a long-lost, feared dead, aristocrat, the book sweeps across countries, class and historical events in masterly fashion. It has a wicked twist at the end that any writer would be proud of.
Over the years I’ve read most of Goddard and owned a good many of his novels in hardback. Some I reviewed for newspapers. Later books did not quite have the depth and bite of the first three but, usually with an historical theme, they were always readable. If the protagonist sometimes seemed bland (Goddard commonly employed a first-person narrator), intricate plots and unusual settings provided more than enough interest.
Goddard’s research – he was trained as an historian – into such events as the Spanish Civil War and the 18th-century South Sea Bubble financial scandal, and developments like the invention of photography, was always impressive. Cheekily, I once wrote to him telling him how much I enjoyed his books but pointing out an error of fact in one about Australia. He was amused, wrote back, and we exchanged a few letters.
I met Goddard when he came to Australia for one of the capital city writing festivals and we were on a panel together. He was pleasant and unassuming. While chatting, I mentioned how disappointed I’d been in the film made in 1985 of one of my books, The Empty Beach. He said that when he watched the television adaptation of his 1990 novel Into the Blue (which starred the late John Thaw, a guarantee, you’d think, of quality), he had trouble recognising any of it as relating to his book.
Robert Goddard has produced 24 substantial novels in 28 years, an impressive output. Inevitably, some are better than others, but I’ve never failed to finish one. When giving talks in libraries I’ve sometimes mentioned Goddard and the librarians invariably tell me his books are popular with a wide range of readers, something every writer likes to hear.
I recently read one of his latest books, Fault Line (2012), after not having read him for several years. There it was again – the historical treatment of a technical subject, in this case the china clay industry, made interesting and serving as the backdrop to a story of love and death and family pain, set in Cornwall, London, Naples and Capri. Expertly handled dialogue, brisk action, a travelogue and the characteristic labyrinthine plot – all the ingredients for a satisfying, if undemanding, read.
Goddard is only 59, young as writers go, and many more books can be expected from him.
Thanks so much for your post Peter. I read mainly literary fiction and no thrillers at all except Robert Goddard’s. I’ve read about eight of his books and really enjoyed them. I haven’t read all of them because I tend to choose those that I find interesting because of the storyline and the setting. And that is where Goddard’s strengths are. Faultline I thought was one of the best I’ve read.