Hi, I ran onto another interesting author- James McBride, who has written 3 books so far. His first is THE COLOR OF WATER, next was MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA, and the recent one is THE SONG YET UNSUNG. I have read the last two and it was hard to put one down to continue with the other one. My favorite was MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA. Mr. McBride is a black author who writes about the life of the blacks both as slaves (THE SONG YET UNSUNG) and, with MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA, in the military.
Dedicating the St Anna book to the men of the 92nd Infantry Division (the Buffalo Soldiers) and to the people of Italy, now and during World War II, McBride spins a story that as a child he listened to from his Uncle Henry, of the war. The location is a small village in the Serchio Valley of Tuscany, Italy, where in 1944 at the church at St. Anna the Nazi executed 560 men, women and children, then burning them behind the church. Shorty after this atrocity, four men from the 92nd Buffalo Soldiers unit blundered into the small village of Bornacchi, close to St. Anna, cold, hungry, and completely lost from their unit.
These were black soldiers, the first black men the Italians had ever seen. Needless to say, they were frightened and awed by these huge “chocolate” soldiers. Were they Ethiopians, or the feared, crazy sword-wielding British Gurkhas? Whatever they were, they were welcomed into this small village of 32 people, which included Ettora, the local witch, Peppi, the legendary partisan, and Ludovico, and his mysterious multiplying rabbits hidden beneath his bedroom floor.
raise him as his own child. Needless to say, this caused much conflict among the other unit members, aNevertheless, the heroes of the story are the “chocolate giants” who found peace, love, and people who loved them for what they were, not what color they were, in this small Italian valley surrounded by German soldiers. There were: Stamps- a Northern college graduate and officer, who felt superior to the low-class illiterate Negroes from the South although, after joining the military, he found to his dismay the military did not care–he was “black” and thus treated that way. Next was Hector- a Puerto Rican from Harlem. Growing up with black, Spanish, and Italian people in the ghetto, he had multi-language skills; thus, to his dismay, he was the interpretor of the unit. Bishop was supposed to tend to the souls of the men, since he was a-fire preaching minister back in Kansas. In actuality, he was just a two-bit hustler, who believed in God only at the time of preaching. In my opinion, the star of the book is Train- a poor illiterate boy from North Carolina, deeply religious and deeply superstitious. His life belonged to God. After finding a half-dead child in a haystack, Train is convinced the child is an angel. Protecting and healing the child, Train wants to take him home andnd the village people, who saw Train as a witch or devil.
You will not be able to put this book down. It is at the Harrison County Library along with THE SONG YET UNSUNG (about runaway slaves and a dreamer).
Carolyn Beanblossom
