SummaryNaples, Italy, during four fateful days in the fall of
1943. The only people left in the shattered, bombed-out
city are the lost, abandoned children whose only goal is to
survive another day. None could imagine that they would
become fearless fighters and the unlikeliest heroes of
World War II. They are the warriors immortalized in Street
Boys, Lorenzo Carcaterra's exhilarating new novel, a book
that exceeds even his bestselling Sleepers as a riveting
reading experience. It's late September. The war in Europe is almost won. Italy
is leaderless, Mussolini already arrested by anti-Fascists.
The German army has evacuated the city of Naples. Adults,
even entire families, have been marched off to work camps
or simply sent off to their deaths. Now, the German army is
moving toward Naples to finish the job. Their chilling
instructions are: If the city can't belong to Hitler, it
will belong to no one. No one but children. Children who have been orphaned or
hidden by parents in a last, defiant gesture against the
Nazis. Children, some as young as ten years old, armed with
just a handful of guns, unexploded bombs, and their own
ingenuity. Children who are determined to take on the
advancing enemy and save the city—or die trying. There is Vincenzo Soldari, a sixteen-year-old history buff
who is determined to make history by leading others with
courage and self-confidence; Carlo Maldini, a middle-aged
drunkard desperate to redeem himself by adding his
experience to the raw exuberance of the young fighters;
Nunzia Maldini, his nineteen-year-old daughter, who helps
her father regain his self-respect— and loses her heart to
an American G.I.; Corporal Steve Connors, a soldier sent
out on reconnaissance, then cut off from his comrades—with
no choice but to aid the street boys; Colonel Rudolph Van
Klaus, the proud Nazi commander shamed by his own sadistic
mission; and, of course, the dozens of young boys who use
their few skills and great heart to try to save their city,
their country, and themselves. In its compassionate portrait of the rootless young, and
its pitiless portrayal of the violence that is at once
their world and their way out, Street Boys continues and
deepens Lorenzo Carcaterra's trademark themes. In its
awesome scope and pure page-turning excitement, it stands
as a stirring tribute to the underdog in us all—and as a
singular addition to the novels about World War II.
|
