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The Secret of Santa Vittoria

robert crichton

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The clownish Bombolini becomes a man of significance when he devises a plan to prevent the Germans from taking Santa Vittoria's liquor supply

416 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1,1966

This edition

Format
416 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published
January 1, 1966 by Carroll \u0026 Graf Pub
ISBN
9780881842678
ASIN
0881842672
Language
English

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About the author

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robert crichton

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Crichton was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and grew up in Bronxville, New York.[1] He served in the infantry during World War II, and was wounded during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. Before returning to the States, he ran an ice cream factory on the outskirts of Paris; it was, he said, his decompression chamber. He attended Harvard University on the GI Bill and was a member of the famed class of 1950. His father, Kyle Crichton, was a writer/editor at Collier's magazine and author of novels and biographies, including a biography of the Marx Brothers. He also wrote a column for The New Masses, a Marxist weekly, under the name Robert Forsythe.

Crichton's first book, The Great Impostor, published in 1959, was the true, if picaresque, story of Fred Demara, an impostor who successfully assumed scores of guises including serving as a Trappist monk, a Texas prison warden and a practicing surgeon in the Royal Canadian Navy. The book was a bestseller and adapted into a successful 1961 film with Tony Curtis in the starring role. Crichton's second book, The Rascal and the Road, was a memoir about his escapades with Demara.

The non-fiction books were "hack-work", he said, written to support a growing family. In 1966, he published his first novel, The Secret of Santa Vittoria. The New York Times critic Orville Prescott wrote: "If I had my way the publication of Robert Crichton's brilliant novel...would be celebrated with fanfares of trumpets, with the display of banners and with festivals in the streets." The book was on the New York Times bestseller list for over 50 weeks, spending 18 of them at the top of the list, and became an international bestseller. Set in an Italian hill-town and telling the story of local resistance to the Nazis during World War II, the novel was adapted into a Golden Globe winning film of the same name in 1969.

Crichton's second and last novel, The Camerons, published by Knopf in 1972, was drawn from the lives of his great grandparents, a Scottish coal mining family. It too was a bestseller. He had intended to write a sequel, but the work was never completed.

Among countless magazine articles, he was best known for an essay "Air War--Vietnam," published by The New York Review of Books, in 1967. The essay was distributed all over the world.

Crichton died in 1993 in New Rochelle, New York, at the age of 68.

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Community Reviews

Rating(4.2 / 5.0, 100 votes)
5 stars
43(43%)
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100 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
RoyalYaoiBlog
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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This was an interesting read. I would not have chosen it on my own, but it was a book club selection. The character development seemed to take way too long, and I wasn't drawn in until about halfway through the book. I guess you could call this historical fiction, as it took place during WWII, as the Germans were invading southern Italy. There were some uncomfortable descriptions of torture, but they were brief. The story had a strange humor to it, and I was anxious to finish and find out what happened with all the wine of Santa Vittoria!
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mochakawaiibear
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Being an Italian myslef, I absolutely LOVED this book! Thanks to my mom for recommending it!
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Lorelei
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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One of my favorite books ever

Not great literature but an absolutely enchanting story! A small Italian town's fight to protect their greatest treasure - their only treasure - from a German occupying force in WW2. Have read many times since discovering this book as a teenager and expect I will read it many more. For those of you who re-read favorite books, its that kind of perfect and satisfying story.
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nel-sON
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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This was my favorite novel of the Top Ten bestsellers from 1966. My favorite so far anyway; I have read five of the ten. When I complete reading the entire list I will post it along with the final review.

The Secret of Santa Vittoria was #3. It is set in an impoverished Italian hill town near the end of WWII, beginning with the death of Mussolini. The secret is the wine. The entire town is involved in growing the grapes, tending the vines, and pressing the wine. It is a one-product economy.

When a German occupation arrives, seeking to impound the wine, the people of the town must set aside their many animosities with each other to protect their wine stores. Over a million bottles! They devise a scheme to hide it that is even more labor intensive than the growing, harvesting and pressing.

The large array of characters are all larger than life. There is drama, distress and humor. I couldn't wait to read it each day.

A movie, starring Anthony Quinn, was released in 1969.
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poeslist
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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A highly entertaining story with tightly written use of details.

2015 Reread: I remember enjoying this novel so much, and lately I've done a lot of mysteries and books for work, so I decided to do something I rarely do with novels -- I read this a second time after over 20 years. The story was new to me, after so many years. The writing was still so entertaining that I had no trouble looking forward to picking up the book, and even sneaking in extra reading time. Bombolini the Mayor of Santa Vittoria was an original, and his application of Machiavelli worked.

In the reread, I was interested in the cross cultural part of the story: the assumptions the Germans made about the people of Italy. They misread many obvious pieces of information because they discounted the Italian people as lazy and disorganized. Yet it was the Italians' ability to organize a deception and sustain it that provides the plot of the story.

I remembered the story being very well tied up in the final chapter. For some reason I had the impression that the first time I ready this book, the last line was the final straw. In this reading, I did feel that the last sentence was so key to the book, but it certainly savored the moment.

I had classified this book as a favorite. I'm not sure I should keep that designation after this second reading.
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Itami98
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Loved, loved, loved this book. Storytelling at it's best.
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RagingAsianGuy
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Hidden away with my family’s things, my nonno mentioned I may enjoy this book. He knows me well. Come to find out this book was a NY Best Selling book in its day. It’s funny, it’s witty, and loved the storyline. Once again, another WWII book (I seem not to be able to escape this genre), but in this case, it’s a humourous tale of how entire Italian town tricked the Germans occupying it by hiding their prized wines.

My grandfather also mentioned it became a movie. Now I’m off to find it because I’m sure the cinematography will be amazing; yet the acting will be a little kitchsy.
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ThaJigglez
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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WOW. Reading this was a bit like reading the Guernsey Potato Peel Pie Society, and a bit like watching the 1953 movie Wages of Fear. Exciting, moving, funny, wise...and shocking, too.

I have to admit it took me about 100 pages to really get into it, but then I couldn't put it down.
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