Miracle at St. Anna

“[The newspaper] floated down and pirouetted in the air a few times and finally landed on a table at the sidewalk café below, as if God had placed it there, which He, in fact, had.”

The discussion of the newspaper “pirouetting” suggests an artistry and intention to the happenstance of a newspaper being thrown out the window. This is then combined with the impression of divine intervention to assert potential beauty in a violent world as a sign of God’s influence.

“Train marveled at how tiny the Germans were. He expected them to look like the ones he’d seen in the newsreels […] straight-backed, strong, fit, neat […] Instead, he saw soldiers that looked like skeletons.”

Train’s astonishment that the Germans do not resemble those in propaganda (implied both as pro-German and to rouse anti-German sentiment among Americans) indicates the efficacy of that propaganda. The contradictory reality of the struggling Germans shows The Brutality of War in a way that humanizes an enemy and highlights the difference between the individual soldiers and the governments that dictate them when it comes to understanding the war.

“The lovely mountains of Tuscany, mountains that would years later inspire dozens of gushing travel books from breathless American writers, were not friendly to the coloreds. They were rude and discourteous, dangerous and deadly.”

This depiction of the mountains distinguishes the “gushing” writers from the “coloreds” in a way that implies that these travel book writers are white. This builds on a presumption (depicted and challenged in the novel) that “Americanness” is synonymous with “whiteness.” The mountains thus, like American culture, are “rude and discourteous, dangerous and deadly” to the Black soldiers.

“American Negroes of the 92nd Buffalo Division, so named by the Native Americans who saw the first black cavalry as having hair akin to that of their beloved buffalo.”

McBride here references the history behind the 92nd Division he represents in his novel, reinforcing the fictional narrative’s relationship to reality. The comparison to the “beloved buffalo” suggests the complicated history of the Buffalo Soldiers in the American Indian Wars, in which Black soldiers who faced abundant discrimination were deployed against Indigenous Americans in a (white) American colonialist conflict.

“This offer prompted a torrent of outcries from all Italian factions, who sent word to the French ambassador [… that] with all due respect to the King of Mont St. Michel and the great nation of France, he could take his two hundred thousand French florins and stick them up his ass.”

McBride here illustrates the contrast between the intense historical study and irreverence that he uses to render this history accessible. Contrasting “all due respect” with the disrespectful order to “stick them up his ass” invites humor into the centuries-long history of the Primavera, thereby suggesting that history is something that can be the subject of play.

“Bishop figured he could move this mountain. There was always a way to move a mountain.”

Bishop here inverts the idiomatic use of “move mountains” that refers to something impossible. Bishop thus shows his confidence in his own ability to manipulate situations, no matter the circumstance—confidence that will ultimately be insufficient to survive the war.

“Take this hill, take that hill. For what? The enemy came right back and took it the next day anyway.”

This passage discusses the meaninglessness of war to those on the ground fighting. The hopelessness and arbitrariness of fighting for larger political goals is established in the novel as a significant element in the human cost of war.

“A life of goodness is not what white folks has chosen for they children. The Bible says it, Proverbs Twenty-two sixteen: ‘Raise up a child the way you want him to go, and he will not depart from it.’ He’s trained to hate, boy.”

Bishop here demonstrates his Biblical knowledge despite his professed atheism. Simultaneously, he fights back against a long history of using Biblical readings to support racism and slavery, which were frequently cited in the making of racist US policy. Bishop inverts this by suggesting that by choosing racism, white people have made hatred and evil a cultural inheritance for their children.

“No decision was a decision. To not take sides was to take a side.”

Peppi’s dismissal of the concept of an apolitical Fascist also applies to the white characters in the novel who consider themselves separate from overt racism, such as Driscoll. The suggestion that choosing not to actively fight against injustice is the same as supporting that injustice applies both to combatting Nazi forces and showing acceptance of American racism.

“A wave of shame made Hector blanch. He was glad he didn’t love anybody. It was easier, safer, not to love somebody, not to have children and raise kids in this crummy world where a Puerto Rican wants to kill an innocent woman for doing nothing more than trying to help him.”

Hector here experiences horror at the impulses that have become natural to him through the brutalities of war. His instinct to hurt Renata before she can (potentially) hurt him is framed as so inimical to the possibility of love that he sees it as damaging to any future children he may have.

“He’s a white man and the only reason white folks is fair ‘round here is ‘cause […] they’re running out of white boys to die. So now the great white father send you out here to shoot Germans so he can hang you back in America for looking at his woman wrong. You think that’s fair?”

Bishop here contradicts Stamps’s assessment about which white officers are “fair” by claiming that white people only show a modicum of “fairness” to Black people when they are looking to use those Black people for their own gain. This “fair” treatment will disappear, he asserts, after that need is met, which, he contends, makes any “fairness” impossible. McBride uses blunt and violent verbs (“die,” “shoot,” “hang”) to convey Bishop’s pained and intimate knowledge of the realities of Being Black in America and Abroad.

“Sometimes [Stamps] felt like his conscience wanted to snap in two. He was constantly caught between the desire of his men and the demands of his superiors, who were slaves to the propaganda, too. They all were slaves. Each and every one of them. White and colored.”

Stamps’s invocation of slavery suggests his recognition that there are forces far larger than any individual at play in war, which causes internal conflict with his sense of personal responsibility. He shows, however, greater sympathy for white soldiers than would Bishop (with whom Stamps often butts heads over how to behave as a Black soldier in the US Army), framing those white solders as equally subject to these forces. The novel challenges Stamps’s assessment, suggesting that Black soldiers have further difficulties with which they must contend.

“He wanted to wave, to show whoever it was that he was a man of mercy, that he was Hector Negron from Harlem who had never harmed anybody in his life before he entered the army, that he never shot the man, just the uniform. He didn’t hate Germans, he didn’t hate anybody. He was just afraid. He hoped they would let him explain.”

Hector’s desire to explain himself to any incoming German combatants highlights the dehumanizing aspect of war and suggests that soldiers like Hector are trapped in a cycle of violence beyond their control. Hector’s objective, in this passage, is not to necessarily survive any interaction with the German troops but rather to be given the opportunity to express his individuality before he is killed.

“[Stamps] was alarmed by the hoops the division commanders leaped through so that poorly qualified white officers would always outrank black officers, because of the unwritten law that no colored should ever be able to tell a white man what to do. The policy had created all kinds of problems in the field—including his current predicament.”

Stamps’ desire for order and his optimism about the military frequently comes up against his pride and his disgust at being treated as lesser due to his race. Though Stamps cannot entirely disavow his faith in structures like the Army, he nevertheless recognizes that illogical racist policies compromise these structures, to his personal detriment. This causes continued internal conflict for the lieutenant. McBride highlights the ridiculous nature of these policies through the metaphor of leaping through hoops, which compares white officers to circus performers.

“The Italians were like the colored, Stamps thought bitterly, they know what it’s like to be on the outside looking in.”

Stamps here finds kinship with the Italians based on the outsider status that they’ve been assigned by the hegemonic powers in their societies (as Black people have been subjugated by white Americans, Italians have been subjugated by other Europeans). Rather than finding comfort in this kinship (as Train does with Angelo), Stamps grows bitter at the pervasiveness of injustice in the country he has grown to love.

“For fifty-two Sundays a year for twenty-one years—his entire life—[Train had] learned that even his own life wasn’t his own. It belonged to God.”

Train’s comfort with his lack of self-determination leads him to be somewhat less openly combative against racist policies than Bishop (or even Stamps, who mentally, at least, rails against racism), while also bringing him a sense of peace. While Train is not blind to the discrimination he faces, his comparative happiness is a source of envy to his fellow soldiers, even as they disparage him for his lack of intellect.

“The coloreds did not understand Allman. He was unstoppable when it came to battle. It was in his blood. It had nothing to do with race.”

Driscoll’s assertion that Allman (whom he has just discussed, for several pages, as being intensely racist but nevertheless “fair”) doesn’t make decisions according to race is thrown into question by his own broad description that “the coloreds” don’t understand the commander. In making this sweeping claim, Driscoll reveals his own racism, which he does not believe himself to possess, thereby casting doubt on all his assessments regarding who is or is not racist.

“[Driscoll] knew Allman did not trust Birch. Birch was an odd man, a bachelor, and second-rate.”

The description of Birch as “a bachelor” connotes that Driscoll and Allman suspect that Birch may be gay and that this suspected gayness is a reason to doubt the man’s ability as an officer. This suggests that, though the primary form of discrimination the novel addresses is according to race, the US Army is rife with other discriminatory practices.

“The lieutenant here’s giving out free Uncle Tom lessons.”

Bishop here uses the term “Uncle Tom” to derogatorily refer to a Black person who is acting excessively subservient to a white person. This term comes from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which portrays the titular character as an enslaved man who offers loyalty and love to his enslavers; the Uncle Tom figure has become an archetype.

“At least I have a home to go to, Hector thought. This poor bastard, this was his home, right here. He’s fighting for a little shithole.”

Hector here recognizes the different stakes in a war between someone who is fighting abroad and someone whose country has been invaded. He longs for home, something he finds accessible both in his memories of San Juan and in his understanding of himself as a Harlem resident (which contrasts with Stamps’s later rejection of the concept of home as something that can apply to a Black American). McBride thus suggests that though both Hector and the Black soldiers have been designated as “colored” by the Army, their treatment in America is very different based on race.

“But if you kill the man and take the man’s money, you are not a soldier, you are a thief.”

Peppi’s discussion of what constitutes righteous killing in wartime shows that what constitutes a “good death” may matter more to the killer than to the victim, as a dead soldier has no use for money. The novel suggests that Peppi’s strict morality in this regard is perhaps slightly excessive but not entirely incorrect, as the person who objects to it most strenuously is the novel’s main antagonist, Rodolfo.

“Ludovico realized, as tears streaked down Ettora’s face and she yelled and cursed, that she was what he’d always known her to be: his ideal woman, his ideal human being. Strong, vulnerable, beautiful.”

Ludovico here releases his ideas about how men and women should act differently from one another, finding himself (after many decades) able to appreciate Ettora’s outspoken nature. This suggests that despite his continued disgruntlement that his daughter is too modern to respect her elders’ wishes without question, he, too, finds some benefit in happiness in more modern ways of thinking.

“[Stamps] noticed, however, that most villagers were going about their business as if nothing were happening. These people are crazy, he thought grimly. He supposed if he had to make a choice between his home and a crowded, dirty refugee camp, he’d stay home, too.

Home. What the fuck is that?”

Stamps’ perspective alters several times in this short passage. First, he considers the Italians “crazy” for treating their day as normal, before deciding that he might do the same, in their position. Next, he realizes that he cannot truly understand their position, as he does not have a “home” in the way the villagers do; racism has made his homeland perpetually hostile to him, thus preventing him from ever feeling “at home” in America.