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Miracle at St. Anna
by James McBride
In Miracle at St. Anna, James McBride, the award-winning author of the critically acclaimed memoir The Color of Water, brings his celebrated talent as a storyteller to bear on an unforgettable novel about war, the bonds of love, and redemption.
Drawing inspiration from the stories he heard as a child from family members who had fought on the battlefields of Italy and elsewhere during the Second World War, McBride's first foray into fiction is inspired by a historical incident an unspeakable massacre in a small village in Tuscany, St. Anna Di Stazzema and on the experiences of the famed Buffalo soldiers of the all-black, segregated 92nd Division.
McBride tells the story of four GI's who find themselves cut off from the rest of their unit, the villagers with whom they take refuge, a band of partisans, and an Italian boy who teaches them about the power to love unconditionally, to forgive, to live after the worst of atrocities, and, most of all, the power?amid carnage and destruction to believe once more in God's miracles.
Layered with plot twists, storytelling, elements of magical realism, and McBride's keen ability to blend what a critic described as "humor and clear-eyed grace," Miracle at St. Anna is an absorbing, singular evocation of war, cruelty, passion, and heroism.
It touches on the issues of race that followed these black soldiers from the Southern camps where they trained at home onto the battlefields where they were led by white southern officers; the conflict between the Italian fascists and the partisans and between the partisans and the Germans; the history and mythology of the region; the past's continued impact on the present; the confusion of war; and much more.
Above all, it is a study of how human beings relate to one another while trapped within the confines of intense suffering, and it is a hymn to the brotherhood of man and the power to do good that transcends class, race, and geography.
by James McBride
In Miracle at St. Anna, James McBride, the award-winning author of the critically acclaimed memoir The Color of Water, brings his celebrated talent as a storyteller to bear on an unforgettable novel about war, the bonds of love, and redemption.
Drawing inspiration from the stories he heard as a child from family members who had fought on the battlefields of Italy and elsewhere during the Second World War, McBride's first foray into fiction is inspired by a historical incident an unspeakable massacre in a small village in Tuscany, St. Anna Di Stazzema and on the experiences of the famed Buffalo soldiers of the all-black, segregated 92nd Division.
McBride tells the story of four GI's who find themselves cut off from the rest of their unit, the villagers with whom they take refuge, a band of partisans, and an Italian boy who teaches them about the power to love unconditionally, to forgive, to live after the worst of atrocities, and, most of all, the power?amid carnage and destruction to believe once more in God's miracles.
Layered with plot twists, storytelling, elements of magical realism, and McBride's keen ability to blend what a critic described as "humor and clear-eyed grace," Miracle at St. Anna is an absorbing, singular evocation of war, cruelty, passion, and heroism.
It touches on the issues of race that followed these black soldiers from the Southern camps where they trained at home onto the battlefields where they were led by white southern officers; the conflict between the Italian fascists and the partisans and between the partisans and the Germans; the history and mythology of the region; the past's continued impact on the present; the confusion of war; and much more.
Above all, it is a study of how human beings relate to one another while trapped within the confines of intense suffering, and it is a hymn to the brotherhood of man and the power to do good that transcends class, race, and geography.
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