This novel won the Pulitzer Prize when it was published in 1944. Hersey was a war correspondent in Italy when he penned this classic. Adano is a small fictional town in Sicily. An American major from the Bronx is put in charge and quickly, humanely, and with deft touches, reverses the policies of the recently departed Fascists and wins the hearts of the locals. He is a gracious and gifted manager who makes Adano a very good place to live in again. He dispenses justice dispassionately and seems to always do the right thing. Although his romance with the daughter of a local fisherman is an important part of the story, the two compelling side stories to his magnificent work are his attempts to replace the town's bell and his run-in with Gen. Marvin*. The bell, which had regulated life in Adano for 700 hundred years, had been carted off a few months before and made into a cannon. The totally mean-spirited and obnoxious Marvin had ordered carts off the only road in and out of Adano after one had slowed him down, and he had the carter's mule shot. The town could not survive with the road closed and Maj. Joppolo reversed the General's order. The MP's duly reported the reversal of the order to HQ, but hoping to save Joppolo, mailed it to Algiers. Unfortunately, the information eventually came to Marvin's attention and he ordered his adjutant to replace the little wop. The day the Navy dropped off a bell for the good folks of Adano, Joppolo's relief order, signed by Gen. Marvin, arrived. John Hersey was obviously one of America's great writers, and his admiration for men like Joppolo, the men who selflessly tried to do right by those they interacted with during the war, is a refreshing reminder of why we call them the 'greatest generation.'
*Marvin is clearly George Patton and just as clearly, Hersey was no fan of Old Blood and Guts. The movie, which came out in 1945, politely skips over the General's conduct.
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