Naples 1943: The Italians have lost the war against the Allies; now they are fighting alongside them against the Germans. The protagonist, named Malaparte, a liaison officer with the occupying forces, embarks on an odyssey through a devastated country where its inhabitants live in misery and chaos. Among the ruins, beneath which the dead are buried, women and men sell their bodies to the GIs, and the generous GIs to their compatriots. In the struggle for bare survival, human dignity is also compromised; the narrator fights back with all the means of thought and language, cynically, accusatorily, philosophically, poetically, and profoundly human. Then, in the mythical landscape of Campania, Mount Vesuvius erupts. Decay and destruction are depicted in this epochal novel through images of unforgettable beauty. And in our peace-deprived present, it is as relevant as when it was first published.