Miracle at St. Anna

Content Warning: This guide refers to suicide, racism, slurs (including the n-word, which is not replicated in this guide), and graphic descriptions of violence and trauma in war (including violence against children and civilians).

James McBride discusses the relationship between fact and fiction in his novel, citing the historical research he undertook to develop the plot of Miracle at St. Anna, then recognizing the authorial license he took with this history. Despite these changes, he asserts, the events in the text remain “real.”

In 1983, postal worker Hector Negron takes rare note of a customer due to the man’s large diamond ring (in the Epilogue, the man is revealed to be partisan traitor Rodolfo Borelli). The man’s face causes him to recall the feelings of terror he felt in his past (revealed later to be during his experience in World War II and specifically the German artillery fire at St. Anna). He shoots the man in the face. One reporter who writes about the crime travels to Hector’s apartment, where he finds the missing head of a Florentine statue. The case is thus reported in the international press. A copy of a newspaper bearing the story is thrown out a window in Rome; it flutters down near a well-dressed man (revealed in the Epilogue to be Angelo Tornacelli, known through most of the book as “the boy”), who bolts when he reads the headline.