The Order of the Day

Germany’s 1938 annexation of Austria was not the friendly uniting of sister nations it was presented as, said Malcolm Forbes in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. The novel that last year won France’s Prix Goncourt chronicles the unfolding of a catastrophe “in tiny yet well-paced steps.” Author Éric Vuillard tells the story through a series of narrators and vignettes, illuminating the bribery, coercion, and fakery that provided Hitler an early triumph in his campaign to remake Europe.