Across the River and Into the Trees
by Ernest Hemingway
In the autumn of 1948, Ernest Hemingway made his first long-term visit to Italy in thirty years. His entrance to his beloved city, Venice, inspired "Across the River and the Trees," the story of Richard Cantwell, a war-torn American colonel stationed in Italy at the end of World War II, and his love for a young Italian countess. Piercing, bittersweet praise for the love that transcends the mind, the fortitude of the human spirit, and the earthly beauty and splendor of Venice, across the river and in the trees, act as Hemingway's declaration of disobedience in response to the inhuman great brutality of World War II. Hemingway's last full-length novel, published during his lifetime, led John O'Hara in The New York Times Book Review to call him "the most important writer since Shakespeare."
