A Soldier of the Great War -- Mark Helprin

<strong>From acclaimed, award-winning novelist Mark Helprin, a lush and literary epic about love, beauty, and the world at war.</strong><br/><br/>Alessandro Giuliani, the young son of a prosperous Roman lawyer, enjoys an idyllic life full of privilege: he races horses across the country to the sea, he climbs mountains in the Alps, and, while a student of painting at the ancient university in Bologna, he falls in love.<br/><br/>Then, the Great War intervenes. <br/><br/>Half a century later, in August of 1964, Alessandro, a white-haired professor, tall and proud, meets an illiterate young factory worker on the road. As they walk toward Monte Prato, a village seventy kilometers away, the old man--a soldier and a hero who became a prisoner and then a deserter, wandering in the hell that claimed Europe--tells him how he tragically lost one family and gained another. The boy, envying the richness and drama of Alessandro's experiences, realizes that this magnificent tale is not merely a story: it's a recapitulation of his life, his reckoning with mortality, and above all, a love song for his family.<br><br><b>Author:</b> Mark Helprin<br><b>Publisher:</b> Mariner Books<br><b>Published:</b> 06/01/2005<br><b>Pages:</b> 880<br><b>Binding Type:</b> Paperback<br><b>Weight:</b> 1.48lbs<br><b>Size:</b> 8.10h x 5.30w x 1.70d<br><b>ISBN:</b> 9780156031134