The Glass Mountain: Escape and Discovery in Wartime Italy

The bestselling author of The Ruin of All Witches returns with a gripping, vividly told journey into his family's wartime past Malcolm Gaskill knew two things about his great-uncle Ralph's wartime adventures- he'd been a prisoner in Italy, and he'd cut his way out of a train with a knife and fork. Apart from that, he'd faded into family folklore, lost to view. Until, one hot afternoon in an English country garden, a chance conversation set Gaskill on his uncle's trail... What Ralph really did in the war was, he discovers, even more extraordinary than the exaggerations of family myth. From last-ditch fighting in the Libyan desert and incarceration in a Puglian prisoner-of-war camp, to desperate, dramatic escapes and the assuming of an entirely new identity among the peasants and partisans of the Italian Alps, Gaskill traces a life transformed by conflict, while lifting the curtain on a long-forgotten episode of the Second World War. Yet The Glass Mountain is about more than war- it's a haunting exploration of what it means to encounter the past, and how we remember, forget and recover it. As he follows his uncle's path through dusty archives and the landscapes, towns and villages of present-day Italy, Gaskill finds himself confronted by questions that go to the heart of how we think about the people who came before us- Why do stories matter? How much of the past can ever be true?

About the Author :
Malcolm Gaskill taught history at British universities for nearly thirty years, where he developed an interest in mentalities, emotions and inner lives. Since leaving academia in 2020 to become a full-time writer, he has spent much of his time thinking about war and memory and different ways of engaging with the past. He is the author of six books, including Hellish Nell and The Ruin of All Witches, a Sunday Times bestseller, which was shortlisted for the 2022 Wolfson History Prize. He writes regularly for the London Review of Books, and lives with his family in Cambridge.

Review :
Phenomenal... Part biography, part social history and part travelogue, the book is a testament to the power of dogged research and to those twists and turns of memory which, however unstable, illuminate and inform the present In this rich, engrossing book, Gaskill succeeds in his aim of writing ‘a story that in good conscience feels real’... As I finished his book, I began to see my own family’s past through his glass mountain, spurred by a throwaway remark in the penultimate chapter detailing the lives and fates of the soldiers Ralph encountered in Italy Gaskill's account is as much about what cannot be known about the past as what can still be reconstructed, even as the last witnesses to the Second World War pass from sight... his ability to explore the overgrown byways of history almost as a form of travel writing is again winningly on show here... The book borrows its title from a symbol in Austerlitz by the German writer WG Sebald, a prism through which the past can be glimpsed but not grasped. Writing history is often like that. The past remains tantalisingly out of reach and, as Gaskill acknowledges, what we can comprehend of it can make it more complicated A fascinating record... The Glass Mountain serves as a corrective to Colditz-like tales of derring-do, which give a false gloss to the hardships faces by allied prisoners... it demands a wide readership... The Glass Mountain is an important work of PoW historiography Praise for The Ruin of All Witches A bona fide historical classic... recreating a brooding, dangerous landscape with supreme imagination and wisdom Simply one of the best history books I have ever read... a thrilling narrative Unforgettable ... one of those rare history books that haunts you long after you have turned the last page History at its finest... a perfectly rendered story of greed and paranoia As compelling as a campfire story... deeply atmospheric