Hope by Pope Francis review: Don’t believe the hype, this is another triumph of marketing over substance

The first indication that all might not be as expected where Hope: The Autobiography of Pope Francis, co-authored by publisher Carlo Musso, is concerned came with its arrival. It is, surprisingly, a book of just 302 pages about the life of an 88-year-old man who is also one of the 21st century’s major world figures. Something not quite right there.

Then that opening prologue: a dramatic retelling of how the SS Principessa Mafalda, described as “the Italian Titanic”, sank en route to Brazil taking with it more than 300 mostly Italian emigrants to South America. It had left Genoa on October 11th, 1927.

We are told its story because the grandparents of Francis and their only child, his father Mario, could have been on that ship but, well, they weren’t. They had booked tickets but had to delay their departure for another 16 months, to February 1st, 1929.

It is difficult not to conclude that opening the book so dramatically is a device deliberately chosen, and hardly by the pope, to draw the reader in to Hope, despite the flimsy pretext.