Miracle at St. Anna
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4.1 • 76 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Good Lord Bird, winner of the 2013 National Book Award for Fiction, and Deacon King Kong
James McBride’s powerful memoir, The Color of Water, was a groundbreaking literary phenomenon that transcended racial and religious boundaries, garnering unprecedented acclaim and topping bestseller lists for more than two years. Now McBride turns his extraordinary gift for storytelling to fiction—in a universal tale of courage and redemption inspired by a little-known historic event. In Miracle at St. Anna, toward the end of World War II, four Buffalo Soldiers from the Army’s Negro 92nd Division find themselves separated from their unit and behind enemy lines. Risking their lives for a country in which they are treated with less respect than the enemy they are fighting, they discover humanity in the small Tuscan village of St. Anna di Stazzema—in the peasants who shelter them, in the unspoken affection of an orphaned child, in a newfound faith in fellow man. And even in the face of unspeakable tragedy, they—and we—learn to see the small miracles of life.
This acclaimed novel is now a major motion picture directed by Spike Lee.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
James McBride’s first novel—after his breakout debut memoir, The Color of Water—has all the craft and wonder of later bestsellers like The Good Lord Bird and Deacon King Kong. Based on real events, Miracle at St. Anna follows a quartet of Black and Latinx soldiers trapped behind enemy lines in an Italian village during World War II. They’re protected only by a young local boy and the head of a statue imbued with mystical powers—or so one of them believes. McBride highlights the grim absurdities faced by the soldiers, who are treated better in occupied Europe than in the country they’re fighting for. What sets this story apart from other World War II novels is how harmoniously McBride combines its disparate elements. This is a wartime action novel with strong touches of an earthy, folktale-like magic realism, not to mention biting, caustic dialogues about race, class, and social injustices.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Following the huge critical and commercial success of his nonfiction memoir, The Color of Water, McBride offers a powerful and emotional novel of black American soldiers fighting the German army in the mountains of Italy around the village of St. Anna of Stazzema in December 1944. This is a refreshingly ambitious story of men facing the enemy in front and racial prejudice behind; it is also a carefully crafted tale of a mute Italian orphan boy who teaches the American soldiers, Italian villagers and partisans that miracles are the result of faith and trust. Toward the end of 1944, four black U.S. Army soldiers find themselves trapped behind enemy lines in the village as winter and the German army close in. Pvt. Sam Train, a huge, dim-witted, gentle soldier, cares for the traumatized orphan boy and carries a prized statue's head in a sack on his belt. Train and his three comrades are scared and uncertain what to do next, but an Italian partisan named Peppi involves the Americans in a ruthless ploy to uncover a traitor among the villagers. Someone has betrayed the villagers and local partisans to the Germans, resulting in an unspeakable reprisal. Revenge drives Peppi, but survival drives the Americans. The boy, meanwhile, knows the truth of the atrocity and the identity of the traitor, but he clings to Train for comfort and protection. Through his sharply drawn characters, McBride exposes racism, guilt, courage, revenge and forgiveness, with the soldiers confronting their own fear and rage in surprisingly personal ways at the decisive moment in their lives.
Customer Reviews
Great story
Great story
Bed war novel
I love this book but I saw the movie before I read the book they were both amazing