A Bell for Adano

Historical fiction is one of today’s most popular genres. From the Peloponnesian War to the war in Iraq and all points in between, you can read books that will give you a sense of what it was like to live in those times. Unsurprisingly, the most compelling of these works are created by the people who witnessed these momentous events, who were part of it. I think of such great novels as Hemmingway’s For Whom The Bell Tolls, Heller’s Catch-22, and Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five. John Hersey’s Pulitzer Prize winning A Bell for Adano, although not ranked as highly as these others, deserves praise. There is an authenticity to it that gives the reader a sense of what life in Italy must have been like as the war ended.