Legacy of Guilt

According to A. N. Wilson in Encounter, Schindler "was a swindler, a drunkard, and a womaniser. And yet, had he not been these things, he would not have been able to rescue hundreds of Jews from the concentration camps." Similarly, Lorna Sage noted in the Observer that as "Keneally presents him in the novel Schindler becomes, by almost imperceptible stages, a three-dimensional 'good' man, at once alive and in love with life, without ever seeming 'fated' or heroic or unnatural." In a 1995 interview with Sybil Steinberg of Publishers Weekly, Keneally himself commented: "I was convinced of the moral force of the story…. Stories of fallen people who stand out against the conditions that their betters succumb to are always fascinating. It was one of those times in history when saints are no good to you and only scoundrels who are pragmatic can save souls."

After the success of Schindler's List Keneally focused on another aspect of Holocaust subject matter in his 1985 novel A Family Madness. Based on the mass suicide of a family of five in suburban Sydney in July 1984, the novel traces the legacy of guilt that impairs the lives of Nazi collaborators and their children. John Sutherland, comparing the novel to Schindler's List in the London Review of Books, proclaimed A Family Madness "better than its applauded predecessor." Discussing A Family Madness in Contemporary Novelists, Keneally commented that the novel's contemporary setting is "significant…. I believe the historic phase is nearly over for me and was merely a preparation for the understanding of the present."


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