Peace
by Richard Bausch
Published by Alfred A. Knopf
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Reviewed by Julie Failla Earhart
From an American master comes the riveting short novel about three soldiers’ experience while on a reconnaissance mission in 1944 Italy. Richard Bausch’s Peace is an impeccable novel that can be read, and will probably be read, in one evening. A mere 171 pages, the author uses sparing language and an immense amount of detail to paint a harrowing wartime experience.
The time is winter. It’s been raining steadily for days. An American patrol encounters a farmer with a load of hay. Buried beneath the hay are a Nazi soldier and a female. The Nazi takes out two of the Americans, and in retaliation the Americans kill the two fleeing Germans.
This incident establishes the need for a scouting patrol that has been ordered to see what is on the other side of the hill. As three soldiers, guided by a seventy-year-old Italian man, begin their ascent, the rain quickly turns to sleet and makes their climb exceedingly more treacherous. Before too long, the men realize that they are not merely climbing a hill, but rather a mountain. The higher they go, the colder it becomes and before they reach the top, a heavy snow starts to fall.
The entire story takes place on the mountainside as the four climb. There they are confronted, for the first time, with the realization that they may truly die. More than their own demise, the soldiers are unwitting witness to an execution of Jews, thereby sealing the truth about the rumors of the German atrocities that became the Holocaust. Then the soldiers become the targets of a sniper as they race down the mountain.
Bausch does a remarkable job in delineating the three characters and provides riveting account of their reactions to death. The details of the mountainside and the cold and the snow are equally spellbinding; I found myself reaching for a blanket when it was ninety degrees outside.
I wasn’t sure that I could appreciate the American soldier more than I already do, but Peace makes me feel proud to be an American and thankful that so many fight to keep my way of life secure.
Armchair Interviews says: Quality you expect from Richard Bausch.