Over the years, Derek B. Miller has become one of my favorite authors. It started years ago, when my mom encouraged me to read Norwegian By Night, which was his first book. It was a great book. We both began to follow him, and have read pretty much almost all of his books. Frankly, it surprised me when I went back to find that I had reviewed only two of his books prior to this review. Those were Norwegian by Night and Radio Life.
In some respects, this book actually reminded me a little bit of one of the most favorite works by another of my favorite authors. I am of course referring to Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Not in terms of writing style or how the novel worked itself out, because they are entirely different in that regard. Rather, both novels revisited chapters during World War II which calls into question some decisions by the Allies, which could be considered outright war crimes. In Slaughterhouse-Five, of course, Vonnegut writes about his time as a Prisoner-of-War in Dresden when that city got firebombed, producing what Vonnegut argued was the single worst overnight massacre in European history. In this book, Miller actually describes two events which the Allies were responsible for, and which could be interpreted as war crimes. The first was the destruction by bombing of one of Western Civilization's most important building, the Montecassino. The second was the criminal conduct of the Goumiers, or the Moroccan troops fighting for France, who committed atrocities which came to be known in Italian as the Marocchinate (translated to Moroccan Deeds).
Otherwise, that is the only real similarity that this book has with any Vonnegut books. I never meant to suggest that it was similar in any other way. This book clearly delves into actual history, yet it does so with a modern feel. For example, the main character seems to flip from identifying as a boy or a girl fairly quickly and easily, creating characters in his/her own head. And this book, while about World War II, does not portray Americans or the United States as particularly heroic. In fact, some aspects of this book feel like a warning for Americans in particular, about excessive nationalism and division, fascism and the realities or war.
SPOILER ALERT
SPOILER ALERT
SPOILER ALERT
Okay, so by now if you are still reading this, I have to imagine that you either are familiar with this story already, or perhaps you do not mind the spoilers. Please just don't say that you were not given advanced warning.
As mentioned earlier, this book is not something which can be easily or quickly described. There are a lot of twists and turns here. Also, there are no clear cut villains or heroes. It takes place in World War II, but we seem to meet some decent Germans and Italians, despite them being part of the Axis powers. And we see members of the Allied armies conducting themselves in frankly despicable ways, even committing war crimes.
So not an easy book that can be summarized quickly.
Still, here is my review, which again, does include spoilers.
It begins with a boy being roughed up by locals and left in a ditch on the side of the road near the town of Cassino, Italy. This boy, Massimo, is helped by a mysterious older man named Pietro Houdini. Houdini and the boy go to the massive Montecassino abbey, which is perched atop a mountain and looks and seems more like a castle than a religious building. There, they find respite and wind up spending quite a bit of time together. In fact, they begin to love each other as family. Massimo almost views Pietro as a mixture of a father figure and a wise guide through life.
While staying at the abbey, they hear about how the Nazis, who are being driven out of Italy, have "offered" to transport the abbey's priceless works of arts and manuscripts and other documents and valuables to the Vatican. Pietro and the monks smell a rat and do not trust the Germans, although they also do not have much of a choice. They ultimately agree. So Pietro goes to work categorizing the art work in order to steal it away from the Nazis before they can really obtain it. He lets Massimo in on this plan, and the two work in collusion to achieve this end.
One of the major projects for Pietro is to disguise three masterpieces by Venetian Renaissance artist Tiziano. These are of ancient Greek mythology themes: Venus and Adonis, Perseus and Andromeda., and Diana and Actaeon. Pietro decides that the best way to "hide" these paintings would be in plain site, by painting over them and making them appear worthless to the casual observer. On and off throughout the book, Pietro is busy working on these watercolor paintings, which can be easily washed off, yet would help keep these paintings hidden from the Nazis.
They both want to help the war effort against the fascists. To that end, they try to find guns, but Massimo makes a mistake and goes to the village in search of guns. There they encounter two Nazi officers at a cafe, and this will ultimately end with Pietro and the woman helping them killing these two Nazis. Soon, however, Massimo is taken into custody by the Nazis, where she faces the real threat of torture. Before this can happen, however, Pietro storms in and rescues her by yelling and demanding his release. When they are driving away, Massimo finds out why the Nazis gave way to Pietro's demands, as Pietro reveals that his actual last name is Mussolini, and he is indeed related to Il Duce. They have a heated discussion, but then are both seriously injured in a car crash.
It takes time, but they both recover. Massimo recovers quite quickly, although Pietro will never really be the same. He injured his leg severely and will walk with a limp for the rest of his days. Pietro seems dispirited, and this has a dire effect on Massimo, as well. They are downtrodden, until a couple, Dino and Lucia, and their donkey Ferrari, show up at the abbey. Their presence gives new life to Pietro, which in turn energizes Massimo.
When the fascists suddenly show up rather unexpectedly, Pietro hides Dino, who is a defector from the Italian army, although he is forced to kill two fascists anyway. Meanwhile, Lucia is tasked with disguising Massimo as a girl, until she finds in this process that physically, Massimo is in fact a female. Lucia names her Eva, and that becomes her name for much of the rest of this novel.
Not long after that, they discover that Montecassino is going to be bombed by the Allies, who believe (wrongly) that the Germans are using this massive, fortress-like structure perched atop a mountain - and thus blocking the way north - for defense purposes. The Americans make good on this promise, and level this historical building with three consecutive days of bombing. We learn that the Allies dropped more bombs on Montecassino than on any other building during all of World War II. The building is destroyed, as is the village nearby and much of the woods, to boot.
Before this happens, Pietro has assembled a group to escape Montecassino. Pietro and Eva (formerly Massimo) travel with Ferrari, the donkey, through the snowy mountain passes. Dino and Lucia are with them, as is a nurse, Ada, an injured yet very talkative and friendly German named Harald who challenges the stereotypes of Germans held by more than one in the group, Tobias (one of the monks), and finally, Bella, the woman who helped Pietro kill the Nazis in the cafe. They end up in a tiny village named Villa Santa Lucia. They find an abandoned home that was formerly occupied by Jews who have disappeared (were taken away). The group cleans the house up and attempts to live. The villagers soon accept them, and the group manages to live here for many months, through the rough winter and into the spring.
For a little while, they begin to feel almost like the war is far away. But this does not last. At one point, they find Allied soldiers arrive at the village. At first they are greeted by friendly villagers. But these are the feared Goumiers, or the Moroccan troops fighting for France. While in Italy, they committed atrocities which came to be known in Italian as the Marocchinate (translated to Moroccan Deeds). They do not spare the tiny village of Villa Santa Lucia. Dino and Lucia seem to survive but are brutalized. Harald and Tobias are killed. Ada guns the Moroccan soldiers down, although she takes her own life shortly afterward. Pietro, meanwhile, tries to save Eva, but he gets shot a couple of times, and it appears to be fatal. Suddenly, Eva has to escape the village entirely on her own. Before she departs, however, Pietro gives her his treasures, which include the three Tiziano masterpieces, some other historical artifacts, and plenty enough money to last a long time (through the war, as it turns out). Also, Eva has plenty of food and supplies, as donkeys from the Allied armies had roamed free and unsupervised through the mountains near the tiny village, feeding the group.
In the end, Eva makes her way to Naples. She is stunned that this city, which she and Pietro had spoken and dreamed about going to for all of those long months, could now be reached in as little as a couple of days. So she heads to the coast instead in order for it to take a little less time. Along the way, she has some adventures, including saving a young girl from some sick imprisonment by a solitary nutcase, and boarding a car with other young people before leaving when she senses something wrong (it appears that the girls are selling themselves, and the boys may be some sort of pimps).
When she finally makes it to Naples, se finds it disappointing, not welcoming or friendly or beautiful. Pietro had told her to first find Castel Nuovo, which is right by the sea, then follow an avenue uptown to the apartment of Professor Ambrosio, a former friend of Pietro. She finds the place and then reveals herself to the man, including the treasures - literal and otherwise - which Pietro has given her. There is not quite the same closeness that she felt with Pietro, yet she stays there for the duration of the war, as it is a safe and stable place to wait it out.
Shortly after she arrives at the apartment, she unpacks all of the stuff she has been traveling with. That includes food and gold coins, historical artifacts and, of course, the paintings. She finally get the chance to see them for the first time.
The first painting was for Massimo and done in Renaissance style. It revealed Pietro and the boy looking out on a view of the Chiostro del Bramante from the statues of St. benedict on one side and his sister, Schiolastica, on the other side.
The second painting was done in Impressionist style and was for Eva. It showed a pretty girl on a mule traversing mountain passes toward a man in the distance, similar to Eva's traveling with Pietro to escape the inevitable bombing of Montecassino.
The final one was a sort of version of the Last Supper done in pointillism, a style of painting using small dots to create a larger picture that grows more coherent and complete when seen at a distance. It showed the group from the days of peace and bliss at Villa Santa Lucia.
Eva is touched. Eventually, we find out that she keeps the paintings and, years later, has a professional photographer create life-sized copies of the paintings by Pietro, before she turns in the Tiziano masterpieces. They still mean a lot to her.
Finally by the very end of the novel, twenty years have passed. The abbey has been rebuilt, and she attends the ceremonies. She notes that Montecassino has been rebuilt almost eerily accurately, although it now feels shockingly clean and unfamiliar and impersonal to her. We learn that the artwork and gold has been returned to the abbey. She also visits other local sites from her stay in the region during the war, including the town of Cassino itself, as well as Monumento all Castro dei Volsci with a monument there called the Mamma Ciociara, commemorating the victims of the Marocchinate . Finally, she pays a visit to Villa Santa Lucia, wanting some closure on who died. She does not find the names of Dino or Lucia. And Pietro also is not listed.
She reveals that she has been married with children, but is now divorced. Unlike what Pietro had predicted, she had not sailed West to the Americas, but stayed put in Italy.
One thing that she also says: she never did see Pietro Houdini again. While she at some point seemed to have a strong feeling that he was still alive, and while his name also was not listed among the dead from the tragic episode in the little village, she nevertheless heard from him or saw him on any level. And yet, she realized that, through his stories and his influence, she herself had become "the curse of Pietro Houdini."
Interesting.
All in all, this is an excellent book. Well-researched and well-written. Another great and enjoyable book from Derek B. Miller, whom I have become a fan of. Have yet to read a bad book from his, and this one was quite exceptional in certain ways. It made an admittedly unfamiliar chapter of World War II (at least for me) come alive, but stripped of any heroic narratives.
Highly recommended.
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