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Miracle At St. Anna Movie Tie In (Paperback)

by James Mcbride (Author) "On December 12, 1944. Sam Train became invisible for the first time He remembered it exactly ..." (more)

3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (27 customer reviews)

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Product Details

Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Riverhead (TRD); Reprint edition (Sep 2 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1594483604
ISBN-13: 978-1594483608
Product Dimensions: 20.1 x 12.7 x 2.8 cm
Shipping Weight: 273 g

Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (27 customer reviews)

Amazon.ca Sales Rank: #314,313 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
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#85 in Books > Romance > Multicultural

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Product Description

From Amazon.com

In Miracle at St. Anna, James McBride, author of the bestselling memoir The Color of Water, tells a war story that, like all great tales of conflict, connects the enormous tragedy of war with the intimate stories of individual soldiers. Miracle at St. Anna vividly follows four of the U.S. Army's 92nd Division of all-black buffalo soldiers as they become trapped between forces beyond their control and between worlds. Three of the soldiers have bolted behind enemy lines to rescue their comrade, the colossal, but simple, Private Sam Train. They find themselves stranded between worlds in a remote central Italian village, with the German Army hidden on one side and their racist and largely mismanaged American commanding officers on the other. The strange world of the village floats between myth and reality, where belief in magic coexists with the most horrific acts of war. In the melee that opens the book, the giant Sam Train suddenly comes to believe he can turn invisible, the local miser believes he is cursed with a wealth of rabbits, and each of the other soldiers also exists in a mythical world of his own. But they are all about to be shattered by the Miracle.

McBride illuminates an ironic moment in American history, a time when black soldiers fought bravely for the country whose "freedoms" included Jim Crow laws, segregation, and institutional and widespread personal racism. Miracle at St. Anna puts these intimate stories at the center of the much larger story of the struggle of people of color in this country. Each character is trapped and forced to act as nobly and as bravely as he can in the midst of forces beyond not only his control, but beyond his world. --Paul Ford --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From 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. Agent, Flip Brophy. Author tour. (Feb. 4)Forecast: The multi-talented McBride he is an award-winning composer as well as a writer acquits himself admirably as a fiction writer. Fans of The Color of Water and readers with wartime memories will make up a strong base audience for his first novel.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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On December 12, 1944. Sam Train became invisible for the first time He remembered it exactly. Read the first page

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Customer Reviews

27 Reviews

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3.7 out of 5 stars (27 customer reviews)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding, Jan 17 2004

By	Fivos R. Drymiotis (South Carolina) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Miracle At St Anna (Paperback)

I picked up this book in one of the bookstores in Honolulu airport not knowing what to expect. It quickly turned out to be one of the best novels I have ever read. The story revolves around a group of American Buffalo Soldiers fighting in Italy during the Second World War. Though the story begins with an incident in the present time, the reader is eventually taken to the past in order to discover the circumstances that led to that "incident".
Emphasis is not only given to the discrimination within the armed forces but also to the development of the characters of the soldiers. The book is so well written that you feel that you are part of that group forming your own alliances and friendships. The struggle that unfolds is not only the fight for individual survival but also the struggle to understand oneself.
A beautiful bond that develops is the bond between a young Italian child and one of the soldiers. No heroics or blown out of proportion myths here. Just a beautiful bond between humans that run into each other in the worst possible condition, the midst of a battle.
Though the miracle takes place at the end, I also feel that it was unfolding throughout the book.
A beautiful book.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Miracles of World War II, Dec 10 2003

By	Lindsay (Knoxville, TN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Miracle At St Anna (Paperback)

James McBride's latest book, Miracle at St. Anna, forces the reader into the world of Italy during World War II. At first, this novel seems to be a typical war story. However, this story is told from a unique point of view, that of black soldiers. When one usually thinks of WWII, white men storming battlefields in France or Germany comes to mind. However, this novel deals with a much deeper issue than racial discrimination. It examines the human spirit and what it takes to find one's true self. It also praises the brotherhood of man and reminds the reader that everyone has the power of love within.
The book starts in the battlefields of Italy. Soldiers of the 92nd division advance across a river towards the German stronghold. It is then that the reader is introduced to a central character, Sam Train. He is a huge black man from Virginia who grew up poor and slaved all his life on a farm that he didn't even own. Train is carrying something unusual at his side. In his bag rests the head of a famous statue, Primavera, that he found amongst the ruins of a bridge in Florence. At first he tries to sell the statue head but later it becomes something of a lucky charm for Train. He believes it makes him invisible. In his own mind, he thinks that no harm can come to him while in the battle because of the Primavera's protection. This influences Train's decision to run through German gunfire to save a stranded Italian boy. They quickly escape to the safety of the mountain forest. The boy is wounded and Train quickly grows affectionate toward him. He sees qualities in the orphan that he has never known a white man to possess, such as innocence, trust, and love. In the oy's eyes, Train sees himself.
Led by duty, three of Train's comrades, Hector, Bishop, and Stamps, go after him to bring the soldier and boy back to safety. Hector is a Puerto Rican from New York. He acts as their Italian translator. Bishop is a man from missouri who poses as a preacher to swindle people out of money. He lcaims the only reasonhe followed the men into the mountains is because Train owes him fourteen hundred dollars from poker. Their leader is lieutenant Stamps, a smart, cool-headed man from Virginia who hopes to work his way up the military ladder even though he is black. They finally find Train with the wounded boy and set out to find a hospital and the rest of their company. But htey cannot escape the Tuscan mountains.
McBride does an excellent job of showing a minority soldier's point of view. During WWII, racism was still very much alive in the United States and transferred over to military politics. As McBride demonstrates, the black soldier's position during the war was a difficult one. In the case of the 92nd division, white captains would routinely sacrifice black soldiers over whites, as far as which company would be in more danger. McBride claims that Stamps and his comrades were sent to fight in the front lines because they were thought of as dispensible by the military. The author creates a new perspective of the military during WWII.
McBride's characters routinely feel depressed and rejected by their world. Many soldiers are "convinced that the white man is trying to kill them." Furthermore, why should black soldiers fight for a country that doesn't even appreciate them? While arguing over whether or not a white captain would send a search party after them, Bishop reminds Stamps of a certain day at training camp. On a sweltering hot day in Arizona, the black soldiers had to eat outside the restaurant on paper plates while German POWs sat inside "eating ice cream with the white MPs guarding them." Despite all of the obvious racism, Stamps holds on to the belif that their commander is "fair" and will send someone to get them. On the other hand, the Italians treat the black soldiers as equals. They do not care what color the men are because they give the villagers hope.
McBride raises the question of one's true "home." Is home where one is born and raised or is it where one feels free and able to live a fulfilling life? It would be easy to assume that many black soldiers would want to stay in a foreign country where they were treated with respect rather than go home to a country that treated them as second class citizens. The "miracle" at St. Anna is rather a self-fulfilling miracle that is accomplished by each soldier before the church of St. Anna in Bornacchi. All four men experience a self-awakening moment brought on amongst war and despair. In this Tuskan village, they discover the true meaning of life above the boundarys of racism and prejudice. McBride creates the Italian orphan as a representation of the power to love unconditionally, even after devastation and loss. Likewise, to the American soldiers, the boy represents an unconditional love that they have never known in their own world and a hope for the future. The story, as a whole, convinces the reader that there are such things as miracles and they can be achieved by anyone.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, Oct 13 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Miracle At St Anna A Novel (Hardcover)

I'm familiar with the landscape of the book and found them (both the book and the landscape) haunting. The book was beautifully written - one of the best.

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Most recent customer reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars HUH????
Very difficult for me to believe this is the same author who wrote the beautiful "Color of Water". McBride went from beautiful to pretty awful.

Published on Jul 27 2003 by Leland T. Brown

5.0 out of 5 stars A Miracle
Anyone, including online reviewers, who don't "get" this book are spiritually shutdown. This book grabs and rocks the soul. Read more

Published on Jun 13 2003

3.0 out of 5 stars IT COULD HAVE BEEN A CONTENDER...
The author, who penned the classic international bestseller, "The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother", and was the recipient of the prestigious... Read more

Published on May 18 2003 by Lawyeraau

1.0 out of 5 stars I guess you had to be there???
I tried very hard but simply could not get into this novel. After reading "The Color of Water", I was excited to learn that McBride had released a novel. Read more

Published on Mar 29 2003 by Maurice Williams