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First Published:
Feb 2002, 228 pages
Paperback:
Jan 2003, 304 pages
A singular evocation of war, cruelty, passion, and heroism, based on an historical incident at a small village in Tuscany, and on the experiences of the famed Buffalo soldiers from the 92nd Division in Italy during World War II.
James McBride’s powerful memoir, The Color of Water, was a publishing phenomenon, spending more than two years on the New York Times bestseller list and becoming required reading in high schools and colleges across the country. Now, in his long-awaited second book, McBride turns his highly acclaimed talent as a storyteller to fiction.
Based on the historical incident of an unspeakable massacre at the site of St. 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 of St. 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 St. Anna is above all a hymn to the brotherhood of man and the power to do good that lives in each of us. It reveals to us a little-known but fascinating moment in history through the eyes and imagination of a gifted writer. Like The Color of Water, James McBride’s stunning first novel will change the way we perceive ourselves and our world.
Prologue
All the guy wanted was a twenty-cent stamp. That's all he wanted, but when he slid his dollar bill across the post office counter at 34th Street in Manhattan, the diamond in the gold ring on his finger was so huge that postal clerk Hector Negron wanted to see whom the finger was connected to. Hector normally never looked at the faces of customers. In thirty years of working behind the window at the post office, he could think of maybe three customers whose faces he could actually remember, and two of them were relatives. One was his sister, whom he hadn't talked to in fourteen years. The other was his cousin from San Juan, who had been his first-grade teacher. Besides those two, the rest didn't count. They melded into the millions of New York schmucks who staggered to his window with a smile, hoping he would smile back, which he never did. People did not interest him anymore. He had lost his interest in them long ago, even before his wife died. But Hector loved rocks, ...
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