The Boy at the Top of the Mountain
After seven-year-old Pierrot is orphaned, he is sent to live with his aunt Beatrix, leaving behind his home in Paris and his Jewish friend, Anshel. It is 1936, and his aunt is the housekeeper at the Berghof, Hitler’s holiday residence in the Bavarian Alps. Pierrot gradually settles into life in this uneasy household. His name is changed to Pieter, and he meets and falls under the influence of Adolf Hitler.
At first the reader is sympathetic towards Pierrot, but this soon changes to dislike and revulsion for the person he becomes. The book covers Pierrot’s life at the Berghof over the next nine years, and we watch as his innocence is corrupted by the power and evil surrounding Hitler. The boy, arrogant and blinded by hero worship, betrays his aunt, with tragic consequences.
After the war ends, Pierrot learns the full extent of what he has been complicit in, the appalling horrors of a war he never saw at first hand, but he can no longer pretend he did not have a choice in what he did or what he became.
Years later, he returns to Paris to find his childhood friend, Anshel, who is now a writer. The ending is poignant as we see Pierrot realise that his friend never lost his decency and goodness of spirit and, in an effort to find redemption, he asks Anshel to write down his story in all its unpalatable truth. There are countless small acts of casual cruelty and a scene of sexual violence which make this book unsuitable for younger teen readers. An unusual and disturbing book. Highly recommended.
