A Thread of Grace | Mary Doria Russell | War is hell. Especially for teenagers

A Thread of Grace | Mary Doria Russell | Relevant for our times and our lives

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A Thread of Grace

	A Thread of Grace Mary Doria Russell Ballantine Books, 2005 - 464 pages average customer review:based on 75 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Set in Italy during the dramatic finale of World War II, this new novel is the first in seven years by the bestselling author of The Sparrow and Children of God.

It is September 8, 1943, and fourteen-year-old Claudette Blum is learning Italian with a suitcase in her hand. She and her father are among the thousands of Jewish refugees scrambling over the Alps toward Italy, where they hope to be safe at last, now that the Italians have broken with Germany and made a separate peace with the Allies. The Blums will soon discover that Italy is anything but peaceful, as it becomes overnight an open battleground among the Nazis, the Allies, resistance fighters, Jews in hiding, and ordinary Italian civilians trying to survive.

Mary Doria Russell sets her first historical novel against this dramatic background, tracing the lives of a handful of fascinating characters. Through them, she tells the little-known but true story of the network of Italian citizens who saved the lives of forty-three thousand Jews during the war?s final phase. The result of five years of meticulous research, A Thread of Grace is an ambitious, engrossing novel of ideas, history, and marvelous characters that will please Russell?s many fans and earn her even more.

From the Hardcover edition.

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War is hell. Especially for teenagers

This book is set in rural Italy near the end of World War II. It follows the lives of Jewish refugees from several countries in Europe and the Christian Italians who risk their own safety to take them in. The author draws full, interesting characters of all ages. She is especially good with teenagers and young adults. There are some German soldiers, who are wooden by comparison.
This book has a very heavy-hearted topic, and includes violent scenes. However, it is a story of human courage and tenacity and doesn't end badly for all the characters.
Extremely well written and well worth the time. This is the best World War II novel; that I have read, ever.

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Relevant for our times and our lives

I like books with happy endings. A Thread of Grace, by Mary Doria Russell, is not a book of happy endings - not at all. Yet, I will read it again next year.

I don't just like her book, I love it. In the midst of a story that covers the worst atrocity in human history, and littered with characters of questionable morality and worse deeds, Mary Doria Russell manages to find a thread of grace, and to convince me that it is genuine and enduring.

Russell visited the places she describes in her novel, and interviewed survivors of the war. Her original research lends an authentic, present quality to her prose - an immediacy that caught me up into the lives her characters.

There is no question that Russell not only makes history live again, she proves beyond any doubt that it's relevant to our times and our lives.

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An Inspiring Tale of Human Courage

As I have indicated in my many reviews of books from this period, I am a fan of tales of the human courage that was displayed throughout Europe in WW2 by ordinary people doing extraordinary things in the face of incredible danger. In as expert a fashion as Alan Furst in The Polish Officer: A Novel and Douglas W Jacobson in Night of Flames: A Novel of World War II, Mary Doria Russell brings us up close and personal with compelling characters we care about. Expertly crafted are Doktor Schramm, the Nazi deserter trying to reconcile the sins he committed in the name of the Fatherland, Don Tomitz, the Italian catholic priest putting his life on the line to save Jews, and a host of others whose lives become intertwined in the earthy reality of war time in Porto Sant' Andrea. Bravo for a highly readable tale of human courage. You'll stay up at night to finish it.

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A Trip Into the Near Past

My only complaint about this book was that I frequently got some of the characters confused. This may have been more from my not reading the book on a daily basis, than the author's fault.

It is a fascinating look into a side of WWII that I had not considered and a group of people I had not thought of. The author really does a great job putting you into that time and place and with those people. The culture came alive for me.

The story was easy to read. I could easily follow the plot, and was surprised by where she took some of the characters (despite my having them confused). If you are interested in WWII history, I greatly recommend this book.

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Fascinating portrayal of little-known historical events

Very interesting novel based on extensive research of the northwest region of Italy after Italy capitulated during WWII and the Germans then occupied Italy. The story describes the tremendous risks the Italian people took to hide both Italian Jews as well as Jews who had escaped from other Nazi-occupied countries.

Although I have read numerous Holocaust-related stories, I was unaware of these historical events. Mary Doria Russell is to be commended for taking a complex subject area and creating a tapestry of people to bring this story to life.
-- Phyllis Zimbler Miller, Author of MRS. LIEUTENANT: A SHARON GOLD NOVEL

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