Fall of Giants

Moving from the medieval world of the best-selling The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End, Follett's new historical novel is the first volume of a projected trilogy that follows five families—Welsh, English, German, Russian, and American—through the turbulent 20th century. Covering the period 1911–23, the narrative moves from family to family, country to country, as the Great War impends, happens, and closes. In the first pages, a Welsh boy enters the coal mines; he has just turned 13 that day. He can expect a short and dirty life, but it doesn't turn out that way. The book closes in confrontation: the ninth-richest man in Britain, Earl Fitzherbert, is forced by his own sense of manners to shake the hand of a bastard son he has never acknowledged. Fitz seduced the boy's mother when she was his housemaid. Now she's a Labour MP in the postwar coalition government. Fitz is the past. She's the future. The Great War has changed everything, even for the winners.