Finished: A Bell For Adano (Hersey) Pulitzer Prize winning novel about an American WWII major who is assigned the Italian town of Adano to oversee after the Allies take over the former fascist towns. Major Joppolo is a good and fair young officer. He starts with a town that is distrusting of town leadership, since their last mayor was a fascist who treated them all terribly. The town is starving, in need of water, and in very low morale. Former town leaders make their way to Joppolo within his first few days of being there and let him know that their biggest need is not food or water...but that Mussolini had taken their 700 year old bell from the city square bell tower and had it shipped to his military to be melted down and made into weapons. If they could only have their bell back, they would know freedom for certain and all be able to heal as a town. Major Joppolo promises to look into getting a new bell, but at the top of his list, he makes providing the town with food, water and the ability to start their businesses running again his top priorities. When the hard-core, blustering, unyielding General Marvin is trying to move through the town on Joppolo's first day there, he is held up by a man with a donkey cart in the middle of the road. The townsman has fallen asleep in his cart and the donkey will not move. Enraged, the general orders his men to dump the cart over into the ditch, with the man in it, and then to shoot the donkey in the head. Reluctantly, his men do so. He then stops in to see Joppolo and commands that it be put in writing that there shall be no more carts on the roads into or out of Adano. Period. Joppolo lets the townsfolk know about the edict, and he enforces it...for one day. When the people of the town come to him to let him know they are starving and without water unless the carts can come through, Joppolo tells the men under him to ignore the edict and directly go against the general's order. One man, who is afraid to do it, decides to write up a report and have it sent to the general. In several interspersed chapters that remind me much of the dark humor of Catch-22, various military men under the major purposely make mistakes and reroute the report or bury the report on various desks in order to keep Major Joppolo from getting into trouble with the general. This goes on until the end of the book, when finally the report accidentally ends up in the general's hands and he blows his lid. He calls for Joppolo to be on the very next transport out of Adano and to Algiers to be reassigned. (It is said that General Patton actually shot a mule that was blocking his way on a small Italian road, so maybe this general is representing him?) Anyway, before the reassignment ever comes at the end of the book Major Joppolo does wonders with the town. He sees to it that they are thriving with water and food, mostly by making sure that there is no one there to mess with free market prices like the old mayor did. He finally gets the town to trust him and realize that he will NOT be taking any cut of any money the people make. He gets permission from the Navy (since they are a port town) to let the fisherman go back into the water as long as they have maps and know where to stay away from possible mines. This truly makes the town thrive again with the fishing business underway. Joppolo also handles all the town disputes with fairness, hearing all sides. The people come to respect whatever punishment he doles out, which is usually nothing more than teaching a moral lesson. He also never keeps searching for how to get a bell back into the town. He approaches the Navy captain again, and tells him the tale of the bell, and then cleverly almost makes it seem like the captain's idea to look for a replacement for the bell. And, lo and behold, one of the Navy men just happens to know of an American destroyer that is captained by a fellow who he went to school with. When he reaches out to that captain, he gives up his ship's bell for the town of Adano. The town has come to love Major Joppolo so much, that they decide to have a portrait painted of him and throw him a party of thanks. When the bell arrives the morning of the party, Joppolo works feverishly to get the bell installed so he can surprise the town people that night. One piece is needed, though, that the Navy can't get until the next morning. At the party, Joppolo is touched by both his portrait and the people there who have come to love him. He also sees one of his officers drunk, and when he goes to help him out, he finds out the officer had intercepted the major's mail that morning and had in his pocket the order from the general reassigning Joppolo. Saddened, Joppolo keeps a happy face through the rest of the party, and then packs his belongings to leave the next morning. He doesn't want to leave the town, and mostly, he hopes that whoever replaces him will have the welfare of the townspeople in his heart. Too emotional to say goodbye to anyone, Joppolo hops in the jeep that has come to get him, and when they are a bit of the way out of town, he asks the driver to stop and listen. They hear a bell peeling at the 11:00 hour that the old city bell used to peel. Joppolo is at least happy to know that the bell has been installed and is ringing. This story is based on the true actions of a major in World War II who made sure that the small Italian town he'd been put in charge of got it's bell....and the bell did come from an American destroyer! This was such an uplifting story to me, and Major Joppolo was such a good man! Definitely glad I read this one! :-)