Does anyone know how much of this book is true and how much is fiction? I LOVED this book. If all is true, it is a phenomenal story and even better than fiction.

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8 years ago
10 answers

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Brad Weston The afterward makes most of this all clear -- the vast majority of this is true with the author filling in the gaps as much as possible given lack of records for individual conversations or specific events. All of the people in the book apparently did exist as the author recounts their lives post-story in the afterward. An extraordinary story to be sure.

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Ignacio Could be good entertaining fiction, but the epilogue makes the whole story suspicious. At least to me. Sorry, may be it is all true and I'm a terrible person, but I can't help thinking this old man has some kind of Forrest Gump syndrome. He warned James Dean about his car but he didn't listen to him? He went into a bar in New York and befriended Gary and Hem (and they were Gary Cooper and Ernest Hemingway)? He decided to postpone his flight and it turned out to be Lockerbie's plane? He worked selling cars and a young Phil Hill -later, F1 World Champion- was the mechanic? Met an Indonesian girl and is related to the president? Oooookey...

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NancyJ It's based on a true story, but you really do need to read it as fiction. It's great fiction though. It's largely based on the memories of one man, and supplemented by historical research. Obviously the dialogue had to be created by the author based on Pino's memories from 50+ years earlier. I think the mountain trips were combined in some ways (there were many more than were described in the book). Memories change over the years, and I would expect that he would filter out a lot of memories - either because they were too fuzzy, or made him look bad, or were inconsistent in some way. When you think about how men exaggerate the size of a fish they caught, I would expect that some of Pino's wartime adventures might have picked up some more exciting details over the years. But that's OK with me - it's great reading.

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Mary F For more information on recent events that establish the book to in essence be a [fairly unique species of] literary fraud and hoax, start with comments in Philip's top default review over on GoodReads, the recent comments to Mike Lella's answer to "Is Pino still living..." question in the Q&A section on the book page at GR, my review at https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..., as well as my visible notes to the book.

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Paula O'Malley 80% fact, 20% unproven fact, since many of the characters are deceased. Actual old photographs may be found online.

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Shari O'Connor It is a book of fiction, with a man's memory of his past. An absolutely engaging story and beautifully written. While I listened to the story, I wondered as well how much was fact. But, I know how a mind works, so....as much as this contains many truths, we must be accepting that this is a book of fiction, and allow a memory to be what it is. I'd recommend this book to any and everyone.

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Larry The book is presented as a work of fiction. The main character is real and so incredibly are nearly all the events described. Currently, I am about half way through but I have fact checked certain details all of which turn out to be true.

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Marilee How old was Pino during the books time period?

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Elizabeth Henry Mostly true from what I checked out. I’ve shared with so many and they all loved it. It was a fantastic read and even more so because it’s true.

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