The Moon and the Bonfire (Peter Owen Modern Classic)

The novel is set in the small town of Santo Stefano Belbo, in Piedmont, north-west Italy. The main protagonist, known only by his nickname of Anguilla (Eel), has returned to his home town in the years immediately following the Second World War. He had left just before the war, ostensibly for political reasons, and had made his fortune in the United States. Returning to his home town, he finds many of the same smells and sights that filled his youth, but he also finds a town and its inhabitants that have been deeply changed by war and by the passage of time.