Not All Bastards are from Vienna - Tapa dura

Praise for NOT ALL BASTARDS ARE FROM VIENNA AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER "Wonderfully alive--often terribly so--as a wartime adventure and story of youth arriving at manhood." --New York Times Book Review "War and Peace meets The Leopard in a novel set among Italian aristocrats during the Great War . . . Rich and moving . . . Molesini has the true novelist's ability to bring scenes and individuals immediately before our eyes, so vividly that they take possession of our imagination . . . This is a very fine novel indeed, a historical novel that speaks to the present as powerfully and clearly as it does of the past." --Wall Street Journal "[A] stunning debut novel . . . Riveting and heartwarming, Molesini balances a nuanced look at the nature of war with the minor triumphs and defeats that mark growing up and falling in love. Molesini's moving and lyrical writing proves that Not All Bastards are From Vienna belongs in the canon of great war fiction." --Paste Magazine "An excellent war novel, as well as a powerful depiction of a family's strength and mankind's justification for war's barbarity, movingly told and full of vivid imagery." --Publishers Weekly (starred review) "[An] impressively controlled, gently paced, ultimately piercing debut . . . this unusual novel, reflecting the war in microcosm, captures a turning point in the fates of empires." --Kirkus Reviews "In Not All Bastards Are From Vienna, war is a demon that sweeps away everything . . . It is one of most successful characters in this compelling and enigmatic work, which leaves the reader deeply satisfied." --L'Unit (Italy) "Molesini's words are vital and transcend the rhetoric of memory . . . Behind this skillful work lies a collective vision, one that speaks for individuals no longer with us." --La Repubblica (Italy) "In Not All Bastards Are from Vienna, characters are streaked by vivid language; with a sure hand, Molesini plumbs the depths of his characters' psychologies." --Corriere Della Sera (Italy) "Wonderful." --La Stampa (Italy) "With formidable talent, Molesini gradually reveals a universe of love and hate, patriotism and everyday heroism." --Le Monde (France) "A thunderbolt of a debut novel . . . a vast fresco, both family chronicle and story of the Great War . . . evoked with finesse and erudition. --L'Express (France) "Take Hemingway's masterpiece A Farewell to Arms and Erich Maria Remarque's classic All Quiet on the Western Front, and cross these two war depictions with the portrait of Italian aristocracy in Tomasi di Lampedusa's novel The Leopard. . . . [Not All Bastards Are from Vienna] is a powerful and effective blend of Bildungsroman, armchair travel, historical document, and war drama, with touches of a thriller." --Kultur (Denmark) "Full of lessons for the man of today and tomorrow . . . [with] characters of flesh and blood, people with wit and courage . . . Molesini traces with a steady hand this historical map, this atlas of feelings and emotions . . . [it's a] novel of boundless beauty and tenderness, but also the overwhelming sadness and drama of war in Europe during the first half of the twentieth century. A story, too, about almost unsung heroes, those who forged the dream of a continent." --ABC Spain "Molesini gives all his grace to the story . . . [with] great expressive power." --El Pais (Spain) "A beautiful, sensual and visionary novel." --Juan Mars , winner of the Cervantes Prize

Andrea Molesini's exquisite debut novel--winner of the prestigious Campiello Prize--portrays the depths of heroism and horror within a Northern Italian village toward the end of the Great War. While a family's villa is requisitioned by enemy troops, they are forced to intimately confront war's injustice as their involvement with its sinister underpinnings grows more and more complex. In the autumn of 1917, Refrontolo--a small community north of Venice--is invaded by Austrian soldiers as the Italian army is pushed to the Piave river. The Spada family owns the largest estate in the area, where orphaned seventeen-year-old Paolo lives with his eccentric grandparents, headstrong aunt, and a loyal staff. With the battlefront nearby, the Spada home become a bastion of resistance, both clashing and cooperating with the military members imposing on their household. When Paolo is recruited to help with a covert operation, his life is put in irrevocable jeopardy. As he bears witness to violence and hostility between enemies, he grows to understand the value of courage, dignity, family bonds, and patriotism during wartime.