The House on the Hill

"If you want to know what it's like to be a civilian in a time of war, and in particular in northern Italy in the confused, messy, bloody period between September 1943, when the Italian government switched sides, and the end of the war, this book is a good place to start. But this book may thwart your expectations. Although vendettas, reprisals and atrocities take place, along with massive "collateral damage" due to bombing and shelling of cities, almost all of that takes place "offstage". The main character is a fortyish schoolteacher working in Turin and living for safety's sake in the countryside outside of the city. Although Corrado has vaguely anti-Fascist sentiments, he has no interest whatsoever in participating in the resistance. If anything he finds a pleasure in the war (until it gets too close for comfort) since it provides him with a kind of temporary escape from the outside world, giving him an excuse to enjoy isolation in the woods outside the city. This is not a rollicking adventure story but rather a somber and melancholy first-person account of a person who sees destruction and bloodshed from a distance and strives only to avoid it."--Goodreads