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This is a novel by the young war correspondent who wrote Into the Valley. It is a novel but it is also the truth. It is about Americans in Italy. It tells of the Italian-American major who tried to rebuild an occupied town along the lines of his own good instincts and democratic upbringing. He understood the wonderful, simple people of the town—the fishermen, the officials, the cartmen, the children who ran in the streets shouting to American soldiers to throw them caramels—and he knew how much they wanted to carry on the customs of their homeland but also how much they wanted and needed a new freedom. He found that an ancient bell which the town had loved had been taken away by the Fascists to make gun barrels, and he did something about it. He discovered that there were pretty girls in Italian towns just as there are in American towns. And he and his new friends ran into some crippling difficulties—red tape and prejudice which revealed themselves in astonishing quarters.
Mr. Hersey spent three months of the summer of 1943 in the Mediterranean theater, cover the Sicilian campaign, and lived for some time in a village like the Adano of his story. His novel has the kind of truth that could come only from first-hand knowledge coupled with profound understanding and feeling. But the story also has rich meaning for the future, for it deals with men who are already facing problems that will follow in the wake of the war. It makes startlingly clear the fact that charters and agreements are only as effective as the men who are sent to implement them.
Readers of Mr. Hersey's Into the Valley and Men on Bataan will remember how deftly and sensitively the brilliant young correspondent of Time and Life sketched our fighting men—their thoughts and feeling as they marched and waited and fought. And they will remember the exciting swiftness of his narrative technique. This is his first novel, and it displays to full advantage his remarkable ability to create lovable and unforgettable characters and to make a story move quickly and with purpose.
—from the dust jacket
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