by James Mcbride (Author), James Macbride (Author)
Based on the historical incident of an unspeakable massacre at the site of Sant'Anna Di Stazzema, a small village in Tuscany, and on the experiences of the famed Buffalo soldiers from the 92nd Division in Italy during World War II, MIRACLE AT SAINT. ANNA is a singular evocation of war, cruelty, passion, and heroism. It is the story of four American Negro soldiers, a band of partisans, and an Italian boy who encounter a miracle - though perhaps the true miracle lies in themselves.Traversing class, race, and geography, MIRACLE AT SAINT. ANNA is above all a hymn to the brotherhood of man and the power to do good that lives in each of us.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 288
Edition: paperback / softback
Publisher: Sceptre
Published: 20 Jan 2003
ISBN 10: 0340823186
ISBN 13: 9780340823187
Book Overview: The author of the classic The Color of Water - the international bestseller with more than a million and a quarter copies sold in the United States alone - returns with a remarkable and unforgettable novel about war, the bonds of love, and redemption.
James McBride's first book, The Color of Water, a memoir published in 1996, sold more than 1.3 million copies and was a bestseller for two years. Now he has produced a novel, Miracle at Sant'Anna. It evokes such power and beauty, pathos and love, that it may very well outstrip its precursor...A searingly, soaringly beautiful novel. Some may argue that the epilogue, which brings the story sharply back to the present, does so perhaps a trifle too cleverly. That was not the case for me. I found it crisp and free of sentimentality.
The book's central theme, its essence, is a celebration of the human capacity for love. Even in the course of virtually unbearable warfare and deprivation - with carnage and devastation, hunger and hopelessness blotting out all other realities - people are able to touch each other, to care. That, McBride insists, is the enduring, immortal miracle of the human race, for all its imperfections.