{"product_id":"a-soldier-of-the-great-war","title":"A Soldier of the Great War","description":"\u003cstrong\u003eFrom acclaimed, award-winning novelist Mark Helprin, a lush and literary epic about love, beauty, and the world at war.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlessandro 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen, the Great War intervenes. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHalf 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.\r","brand":"Mark Helprin","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":44444897575148,"sku":"9780156031134","price":21.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0684\/1791\/3068\/files\/9780156031134.jpg?v=1708848956","url":"https:\/\/intl.allstora.com\/products\/a-soldier-of-the-great-war","provider":"Allstora","version":"1.0","type":"link"}