Ever get so caught up in someone else's story that you are there? You feel yourself a participant or bystander in the action. Your heart races when danger is imminent and you're awash with relief when the group reaches relative safety. James McBride's Miracle at St. Anna does just that. Descriptions of war and beauty and human suffering that can only be experienced in one's innermost parts reverberate in the mountains and foothills of the Italian landscape. The dramatic, descriptive prose manages to maintain an element of suspense that keeps the reader/partaker feeling as though the novel is perpetually leading up to something (in a good way). The Buffalo Soldiers, like McBride's proud uncle who inspired the book, aren't simply characters, they are undeniably human with flesh that wounds and bleeds red blood, hearts that pound with joy in pleasant moments and sorrow at loss, and minds that are forced by circumstance to grapple with unholy realities. Read Miracle at St. Anna and experience an oft-ignored part of the Good War. P.S. – Then watch Spike Lee directed movie adaptation released in 2008 with the tagline - World War II has its heroes and its miracles.
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