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(Review based on a review copy from the publisher.)
A timely historical novel about the culture war waged in Germany before the Holocaust, which is also a deep and loving portrait of a self-invented young female artist making an impact in the most difficult and dangerous of circumstances. It is timely because it is published as Tech Oligarchs seek equivalent control over the arts as the NASDAP once did and the mechanism of control, deliberate impoverishment of the talented, is very similar in nature but further-reaching than Goebbels could ever have dreamed of.
It is apparent that whilst the accusation against the Jews is that they prosper, unduly, at the expense of the German people, it is the creative talent of the Jews which the new masters of Germany envy and fear in equal measure. The heroine, Hannah, a seamstress from a family entirely engaged in the garment business, who likes to draw, leaves home and starts out on her own, becomes interested in fine art, attracts the attention of an expert who mentors, but does not really teach her as she becomes a painter. None of the Jews in the story are hugely wealthy and only one family is even prosperous, but an Aryan female patron who funds and exploits Hannah in equal measure is indeed hugely wealthy and has several other wealthy Aryan female friends. They do not start out as obvious fascists and for several years Germany remains a democratic republic. But once there is a new Chancellor (who is not named until well towards the end of the novel) the wealthy swiftly and overtly side with the newly powerful and make themselves believe in the new doctrines, heart and soul.
Hannah gets paid lots of money to paint nudes of her wealthy patron and her friends and gives pretty well all of it away. Her art becomes both a target of the culture war and a weapon in it, used by both sides! She is betrayed by her patron and betrays her patron back, but it is the patron who rescues Hannah from imminent arrest and gets her out of Germany. The divisions are deep, but also complicated and ambiguous.
The principal difference between the culture war in the novel and that in the real world in the present day is that the historical German Chancellor passed surprise edicts and even enacted complicated legislation to deprive his victims of their rights, their jobs, their goods and their homes. The relevant quote from the present day Oligarchs is “Tech is how we by-pass the constitution” (so no need for laws at all!) and they are not just targeting an ethnic minority, or even a disenfranchised ethnic majority, or the creatives within them. All creative effort is being stripped of reward and the costs of carrying out creative activities for one’s own expression steadily ramp up. Every non-Oligarch is being steadily impoverished and the thought of what that might be preparation for makes one wonder if this novel is prophetic as well as historical?
Venus, Vanishing by Rebecca Birrell is published by Pan Macmillan/Picador on the 16th of July 2026.
