Not All Bastards Are from Vienna

Andrea Molesini’s exquisite debut novel—winner of the prestigious Campiello Prize—portrays the depths of heroism and horror within a Northern Italian village toward the end of the Great War. While a family’s villa is requisitioned by enemy troops, they are forced to intimately confront war’s injustice as their involvement with its sinister underpinnings grows more and more complex.

In the autumn of 1917, Refrontolo—a small community north of Venice—is invaded by Austrian soldiers as the Ital...