I appreciated learning how a group of residnets, many of them Catholic, joined the partisans in World War II to help the Jews and fascists of northwestern Italy. However, since this was historical fiction, it could have been clearer with the characters not having similar names and not frequentky changing names. The author could have been clearer regarding many of the protagonists, but she did provide a clear picture of how difficult the day to day life was. I also appreciated that most characters were portrayed as real people exhibiting both positive and negative characteristics. I was concerned with some of the author's questions at the end of the book, but they did leave one to ponder differen situations. Again, similarities to the politics of today were very evident. ( )

Taking on a completely different genre from her flagship, The Sparrow, A Thread of Grace is set in the Holocaust. Improbably enough, Doria Russell manages to make a Thread of Grace stand apart from the myriad of books that had previously been written in the setting. She brings her signature touches of a gift for character development and a canny ability to make her reader see every side of an issue, with heavy helping of moral greyness and questionable means to get to still questionable ends.
Doria Russell will long be remembered as one of the epic novelists of our time. ( )

Let's start off by saying that this book was not my cup of tea. While I enjoy historical fiction, A Thread of Grace was too much history, and not enough strong novelization for my taste. With a cast of 44 characters (thank god for the guide to them in my Kindle edition), I found only two to be satisfactorily developed: Mirella and oddly, Werner Schramm, a German doctor. The rest I really didn't care about at all, so while the end was quite dramatic with several major characters dying; it didn't have the impact it could have. The last 20% of the book really could have been amazing, but it wasn't set up in a way that maximized the emotional impact. It didn't help that several important characters also used aliases. I literally must have referenced the character guide over 100 times while reading the book. Perhaps that says more about me than the book, but it was unnecessary.

There were some moments of great writing I will admit, but the highlight, by far, was the prologue. It was absolutely riveting. Really, it should be used in writing classes.

And as a Jewish person, I was pleased to learn about the brave Italian resistance who saved 50,000 Jews and bravely faced the Nazis and their own Fascist government. But in the end, no matter how great your research was and how much you want to include every detail . . .for me, the pacing was very slowed by the amount of war detail. If you love history, you might feel completely the opposite.

This is my third book by Russell, but while I really enjoyed [b:The Sparrow|334176|The Sparrow (The Sparrow, #1)|Mary Doria Russell|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1230829367s/334176.jpg|3349153] and thought [b:Doc|8911226|Doc|Mary Doria Russell|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1320560135s/8911226.jpg|13787599] was okay, I honestly don't like how she writers her characters overall. Think this book will be my last by her.

P.S. It will also be my last WWII novelization for a long, long time. Certainly there are other time periods to write about. Just think this one is done to death, and to do it better is going to take a mammoth effort. ( )

It’s September 1943, and Italy has just surrendered to the Allies. Though that brings the war’s end one step closer, it puts in jeopardy thousands of Jews from all over Europe who’ve somehow eluded the executioners and migrated to southern France, where Italian troops have protected them. Since the surrender has destroyed that protection, most of the fugitives attempt to flee, and, for tens of thousands, northwest Italy becomes the next stage of their clandestine existence.

Sant’Andrea, a town in Liguria, scrambles to hide those who seek shelter there, a task that couldn’t be more dangerous. Not only have the Germans invaded Italy, they’ve sent crack troops to hold the line, the Waffen SS, who’ve terrorized much of Europe. Anyone who aids or harbors “rebels,” “terrorists,” or Jews will be executed, and the neighboring area will suffer reprisals.

To recount the story further would be pointless and misleading, for it’s simply one reversal after another, a big, sprawling narrative from many perspectives, exploring as many themes. Like Italy, A Thread of Grace is warm, dramatic, good company, passionate, and a bumpy, sometimes uneven, ride, not that I care. Among other issues, Russell sifts through shades of good versus those of evil, demonstrating how telling them apart is always difficult. Her narrative discourses on killing, and whether it’s ever justifiable; what true religious faith demands; how to live, not merely exist, when you must hide; and what courage is.

But above all, Russell’s characters propel this novel. My favorite is Renzo Leoni, former pilot who fought in Ethiopia and lives in liquor because of it. He’s Jewish, yet he hides in plain sight, adopting different personae, testament to his bravery, quick thinking, and ingenuity. Sometimes he’s a German-speaking businessman who chats up the sister of the local Gestapo chief to obtain information. Other times, he’s a tradesman or a priest, whichever guise seems safest at the moment to let him visit resistance contacts.

He’s also a cantankerous, exceptionally witty son who has legendary fights with his mother, dialogue that is often howlingly funny. Perhaps Renzo’s greatest gift is his ability to befriend anyone, even a Waffen SS doctor who seeks an exit from the war so he can die in relative peace from TB.

Other notables include Suora Marta, a nun so imperious that a priest of her acquaintance jokes to himself that she outranks the pope. There’s Iacopo, the rabbi for Sant’Andrea, who’s so busy helping everyone else, he neglects his own family. There’s another priest, missing part of his leg from the First World War, who makes sure Jews are welcome and cared for, though he slyly hopes to bring one or two of them into the Church.

A Thread of Grace is the fourth of Russell’s novels I’ve reviewed, and this one bears her trademark grasp of historical detail. All descriptions show activity, even of a supposedly static landscape, which livens the narrative and makes admirable storytelling.

If you’re like me, you may wonder, here and there, whether no Italian Christian ever turned in a Jew. But in her afterword, the author insists her depiction is true to life, having found no instances of any such betrayals in her six years of research. (That may be true of northwest Italy, but elsewhere presents a mixed picture.)

Regardless, I appreciate her portrayal of Jewish characters, who seem genuine, down to the refusal to eat a biscuit during Passover, and their outlook on the world, schooled by hard experience. Once or twice, they may break character in small ways, but A Thread of Grace sets the bar very high for Holocaust fiction, both in that regard, and others.

One way in which it does concerns how the author hews closely to reality. The novel encompasses almost two years of war, and if the Italian populace does its best to protect those in hiding, the Germans do their best to find the fugitives, kill them, and take revenge. Murder and torture mark this story, not just kindness and generosity. ( )

No matter how dark the tapestry God weaves for us, there’s always a thread of grace.

Between 1943 and 1945, Germany occupied Northern Italy, a country where many of Europe’s Jewish population had come to flee death camps and murder. This is the story of those Jewish families and the people of the region who sheltered them, at great risk to their own lives and property. It is a story that is told perfectly. It is one I had never heard before. Knowing Italy was an ally of Germany and that the Catholic church’s official stance was “neutrality”, I had no idea the extent of the sacrifices made in Northern Italy to protect and defend the innocent, the involvement of the Catholic church in this effort, nor the extent of the partisan activity meant to combat the Nazi menace.

There are many characters whose lives contribute to this story, among them a Jewish Italian aviator, a wife of a Rabbi, a young Jewish girl fleeing her homeland, a Catholic priest, and a German doctor. War is a recipe for heartbreak and suffering, and these five encompass all the hurt, regret and terror that such an uncontrolled horror can inflict. Perhaps no time in the history of man is peopled with more unadulterated evil or self-sacrificing good than World War II. Perhaps no one will ever adequately explain to those left behind the bravery of some or the viciousness of others.

Lidia Leoni knows now why men love war. To plan together, to be audacious. To fear, and risk, and win! To triumph over contemptuous conquerors! What could be more thrilling?

But this is not the thrill of war, this is the reality of it--the blood, the loss, the decisions that ache in their making.

Mary Doria Russell is undoubtedly one of the most versatile writers of her age. She is at home with any genre, approaching every subject with such understanding and emotional believability that she transports you to the time and the place and makes you one with her characters. And, therein lies her power, for she writes, whatever her subject matter, about what it is to be a human being; what it is to experience love, fear, longing and despair; what it is to hope, to lose God or to find him.

May God guide us all from war to justice, from justice to mercy, and from mercy to peace.
He reaches for the small Bible he keeps on his desk for easy reference. Holding it in one palm, he opens his hand and lets the book fall open where it pleases. “I cannot go where God is not,” he whispers, and draws a finder down the text, stopping midway down a column in Psalms.
‘I hear the whispering of many, terror on every side,’ he reads, ‘But I trust in you, O Lord.’

I wept copiously at the ending of this novel. I wept for all the wasted lives, all the misjudgement, and all the vanquished hopes of a generation of innocent people. I wept for those who battled so long and hard, who were denied the victory that finally came. I wept for the sorrow God himself must have felt to see such atrocities become so commonplace. I wondered, what have we learned? Enough?

This goes into my favorites folder, along with so many other of Russell's works. Every time I read something she has written I want to scream at everyone I see "READ THIS!" ( )