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    A Thread of Grace
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    A Thread of Grace
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    A Thread of Grace
    Audiobook (abridged)6 hours

    A Thread of Grace

    Written by Mary Doria Russell

    Narrated by Jay Gregory

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateFeb 1, 2005
    ISBN9780739318577
    Unavailable
    A Thread of Grace
    Author

    Mary Doria Russell

    Mary Doria Russell is the author of five previous books, The Sparrow, Children of God, A Thread of Grace, Dreamers of the Day, and Doc, all critically acclaimed commercial successes. Dr. Russell holds a PhD in biological anthropology. She lives in Lyndhurst, Ohio.

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    Reviews for A Thread of Grace

    4/5

    572 ratings54 reviews

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    • 4/5
      A Thread of Grace is a book of very well researched historical fiction, quite a change from Russell's first two novels The Sparrow and Children of God, which were science fiction. After her spectacular and award winning debut as an author, her third book was not a disappointment, and was as engaging as her first two.This novel traces the lives of Italian and displaced Jews and the people who help and hinder them after Italy surrenders in World War II. The characters had great depth and the reader is compelled to care about them. Some aspects of the writing seemed a little awkward, but that is certainly understandable when a book written in English is trying to convey a multitude of languages and misunderstandings without losing the reader. While the story is rather depressing, I came away from reading this book touched and with an awareness of how humanity can shine through even during the darkest times.Experiments in Reading
    • 2/5
      Hiding Jews in the Italian mountains.
    • 4/5
      As usual, MDR provides an engrossing, multi-layered narrative full of complex characters caught up in moral quagmires, in a vivid historical setting. This is one of those books that the reader ought to approach only when time enough can be set aside to get thoroughly immersed in the multiple viewpoints. Disguise and alternative identities play a big role, and it was a bit daunting to keep everyone sorted at first. Having read and loved Russell's work before, I trusted her to make the effort worthwhile, and it was. A Thread of Grace winds through the satanic tapestry of the Nazi occupation of Italy during the last two years of WWII. Thousands of Jews, both Italian citizens and refugees from Eastern Europe, were protected by families in small towns and country villages in Italy throughout the war, and it is estimated that as many as 80% of the Jews who escaped through Italy across the Alps or hid "in plain sight" there survived. This novel is the story of some who did, some who did not, and the Italians who helped them. As painful to read as any account of those awful years, factual or fictional, this at least provides counterpoint to the depravity of the Nazi mindset. I say read it, even if it breaks your heart, because it is affirmative in many ways.
    • 4/5
      3.5 rounded to 4 out of 5. Fascinating well-written account of the heroic efforts of the Italian people to shelter, clothe, and protect Jews, both Italian and those fleeing from other parts of Europe during the German occupation of Italy during 1943-45. Those foreigners come through the Alps -- in winter, no less. We follow alternately, various strata of Italian society: mostly Catholic clergy and religious; simple contadini-- peasants; members of the Nazi military forces; and the refugees, mainly in the person of a rabbi and his family. We also follow a partisan brigade, fighting against both the Germans and against the fascists. This is an aspect of World War II I knew next to nothing about. This was a wonderful way to get some flavor of that time and place. The author took her story from various accounts she had read and heard, melding them together. A most moving account, this novel lays bare the nature of love and sacrifice. In the person of the remorseful German military doctor, Schramm, we are shown repentance in action.
    • 4/5
      rabck wishlist from judygreeneyes; historical fiction set in WWII Italy. Thankfully the author listed the characters in the beginning, including their alias names. Partisans are thwarting the German Army, and hiding the Jews that came over the mountains fleeing France. The novel begins with teenage Claudia crossing the mountains with her father, and ends with an elderly Claudia never speaking of her 2 years during the war with her children. They have no idea of Jewish Claudia's struggles, leadership in the Italian resistance & what she saw in the war.
    • 5/5
      I have never read a book by Mary Doria Russell that I did not love, and this one is no exception. I already knew that Russell was an extraordinary historical researcher who combined meticulous details of the past with unforgettable characters, as she did in The Sparrow and Doc, to name two of my favorites.This book tells the story of Jewish refugees in northern Italy during the final months of World War II. The Nazi regime is in its death throes, but that only increases the urgency of the Jewish extermination it has been carrying out. What they weren't counting on was the warm-hearted Italians, who had lived in harmony with Jews for many decades. They bravely defied the orders of their Nazi occupiers and risked their own lives to hide as many Jews as possible among their farms, churches, and convents. Native Italian Jews, as well as Jews fleeing from the Nazi threat all over Europe, found sanctuary in the mountains and valleys of the Piedmont region.This book is fiction, but much of it is based on true stories. And so you probably know going in that there won't be a lot of happy endings, even for those who survive the end of the war. But Russell never fails to slip some hope in among the despair, a thread of grace in the tapestry of pain that was created. This book, these characters, will stay with me for a long time.
    • 4/5
      Magnificent. Mary Doria Russell is a treasure.

      I learned so very much in reading this book. It takes place in my favorite time frame (WWII) and has such rich full characters, that I find myself thinking of them as friends. I loved this book!!
    • 5/5
      It's rare that a book makes me cry. I sobbed at the close of this novel. War is hell and there are countless, faceless individuals who cast themselves in harm's way & gave their lives for the greater good. If you like WWII fiction, this is top notch.
    • 4/5
      Excellent - right up there in quality with her other works. Very well researched & detailed. A compelling story of an aspect of WWII history not often chronicled.
    • 4/5
      There were too many characters to fully develop any one; many reviews mentioned tears at the end, I never felt enough of a connection to feel any emotion. It was a wonderful book, for the story alone was worth any issues with character development. The final sentences in the Preludio and Coda are perfect for the beginning and the end. You'll have to read the book to see what I mean. I would recommend to lovers of historical fiction.
    • 5/5
      We think of our fiction collection as divided in two sections. One is smaller and this is the TBR, or To Be Read part - those are books we have acquired but have not picked up to read for various reasons. The much larger area holds books we have already read but know we want to read again someday - the TBRA (To Be Read Again) part. Mary Doria Russell’s books are in this larger section, and I selected this book of hers to read because I knew I had liked it a great deal and wanted to revisit it.This historical fiction about the Nazi occupation of Italy reflects meticulous research into what the Italian people endured during World War II. The story focuses not only on the plight of the Jews, but on the many non-Jewish Italians who risked their lives to help protect them. As one rabbi in the story explained, “There’s a saying in Hebrew. No matter how dark the tapestry God weaves for us, there’s always a thread of grace.”One priest had a more specific explanation for the actions he took to help Jews. He encountered a 13-year-old refugee who had nothing but a stamp album, with three hundred stamps from all over the world. When the priest asked how he got them all, the boy explained “They’re from letters [of denial] my father received from embassies where we were trying to emigrate….” The priest asked himself, “Can I abandon that boy, when the whole world has rejected him?”The casualties of the war extended beyond the physical deaths and injuries that affected so many. One character mused at the end of the story: “Immense, intractable, incomprehensible, that conflict remains the pivot point of two centuries, the event that defines before and after.” He observed that “the poison still seeps down, contaminating generations So much evil. So much destruction….”Many of the heroic characters you get to know in this story do not survive. But you won’t soon forget them. Ironically, or perhaps, realistically, it is the Nazis who by and large make it out of this story relatively unscathed. And what of their motivations for evil? The author takes a stab at speculating, via the thoughts of the one Nazi among her characters who is repentant, Werner Schramm. First Schramm acknowledges how easy it was to transform persons into objects, to categorize and then dispose of them. He then admitted:“We were afraid. We were all afraid. There wasn’t enough of anything, and if there isn’t enough, you’re afraid someone will take the little you have. They’ll hurt you, steal from you, and laugh at your weakness and stupidity afterward. That’s what everyone believed. We were all locked away in our separate fears, and then the Führer came out of his prison with a key. He would turn our selfish, despicable fear into a kind of glorious selflessness if we obeyed him, if we dedicated our lives to the Reich. If our blood was pure.”Schramm also agreed that part of the Nazi movement’s appeal was that it promised adherents, “You’re part of something big, and new, and powerful! You’re better than you were alone.” [Make Germany great again…]While Schramm was the only Nazi who speculated about his own guilt, the fighters against the Nazis wondered about personal responsibility much more. They considered many of the victims of the war to be innocent. Renzo Leoni, the tortured hero of the book, had bombed a hospital in the Italo-Abyssinian War (1935-1937), and couldn’t get past it. He understood the Nazis killed many more people than he ever had, but thought "when the murder of forty-three people no longer matters, civilization is extinct."What was most striking to me about this book was the portrayal of the fate of so many civilians, whether raped by drunk soldiers, or shot for looking at passing Nazis the wrong way, or burned alive in a locked building for reprisals against something with which they had nothing to do, or even killed by Allies attempting to help. So many deaths, so many victims, and so much of it aleatory - a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. One can only be grateful for the thread of grace that helped at least some to survive, albeit scarred for life.Evaluation: You won’t be apt to forget this story soon, which is a good thing. Every new generation should be aware of history that preceded it, in the hope that just once, it won’t be repeated. Russell's story emphasizes the importance of pulling out the skeins of truth from the web of propaganda, and resisting the call to hurt or abandon others in order to elevate oneself or one's ethnic group. Morality and grace transcend artificial boundaries, and without those qualities, as Renzo Leoni lamented, civilization is extinct. This book was definitely worth a second reading!
    • 3/5
      A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell, is historical fiction set in Italy during World War II. It's about Italian Catholics and Jews who were part of the Italian Resistance and who hid Jews both from Italy and elsewhere. A list of characters at the front of the book includes 45 people (one of which goes by four names in the book), which was too many characters for me to track. I had purchased my copy at a used book sale, and the previous reader had torn out this list of characters and used it as a bookmark - I can understand why. It probably didn't help that I read most of this book right around the time my mother died - I was pretty tired and distracted. While I learned a lot from this book, reading about so many deaths was depressing, and I'm not sure I would read it again.
    • 4/5
      A Thread of Grace was a fascinating read for me because of the time period it covers. I knew almost nothing about Italy during World War 2 when southern Italy fought with the allies and northern Italy fought with Germany. Italy from Rome up was governed by a puppet government with Mussolini as a figure head, but with Germany actually in charge. Southern Italy was under allied control and their forces were pushing north. This novel looks at the resistance in Northern Italy, specifically how the fighters risked their lives to help Jews fleeing the Nazis.It took me a while to get into Russell's characters, but once I did I found them all interesting and a few fascinating. Even during the most barbarous of times, people still act foolish, fall in love, behave with strength or with terrible weaknesses that leave them overwhelmed with guilt. There were some sections where I felt the author lost the story and instead was teaching the readers, but most of the time the plot captured me, especially in the second half.I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys historical fiction and would like to learn more about Italy during World War 2.
    • 5/5
      The characters in this complicated and powerful story will remain in my memory for a long time. Set in the northern countryside in Italy during WWII, this is the story of the "common and everyday" Italians who hid many Jews and the story of the resistance movement which changed these ordinary people into heroes, saints, or sinners. I admit I had some difficulty with the first several chapters of the book due to the complexity of the names and places. I'm not a WWII history buff so have little background); however, it wasn't long until these complicated names became familiar faces in my mind. The author does a beautiful job of making characters come alive; it's easy to envision the drunken German doctor, the overworked and overwhelmed rabbi's wife, the young Jewish daughter attempting to take care of her father while never quite understanding why they are leaving. The evolution of that young woman into a partisan herself is only one thread of the story.The scenes of brutality are hard to read, but the scenes of tenderness set in the midst of that brutality bring tears. This juxtaposition seems to be one of Russell's best strengths. Two examples come to mind. Young Claudette gives birth too soon, her husband of only a few days already killed. Duno, once a rash, immature neighbor filled with bravado, tenderly tells her the baby is "beautiful" and stays at her bedside. Later in the novel when Father Osvaldo Tomiz is horribly tortured and near death, it is Werner Schramm, a Nazi doctor who has deserted, who bluffs his way into the prison to give the final rites and perform one more killing.The ending of this book is just like the war; there are no nice clean tight solutions. Rather there is a memory of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances who lived through or died either fighting for what they believed in or died as the result of others not even sure why they are fighting. This book is not an easy read. My one complaint is the abundance of German and Italian words and phrases that I was usually able to figure out, but not always (sometimes the author assumes the reader is smart), but reading "Thread of Grace" is certainly well worth the effort and immensely satisfying.
    • 3/5
      Very good book. I did, however, find it difficult to keep track of all the different characters, but well worth the effort. I'd like to see this one on screen.
    • 5/5
      sobbed through her earlier books, and this is no exception. Set during WWII, with many jewish main characters, Russell nevertheless avoids the obvious tragedies (although there are oblique mentions to the events in other countries) in order to concentrate on hearts, minds, and shattering illusions. She has an obvious love and understanding of her characters, and so even the most horrifying come across as realistic, almost sympathetic. Her plot is complex and interweaves many disparate elements without getting bogged down.
    • 4/5
      It's a good read but definitely NOT a beach read. It's long and can be complicated. No "chapters" per se but listed as months.

      My only "problem" is the ending. I hated it. lol I knew that dealing WWII Nazi occupied Italy after Il Duce falls couldn't be easy and it's not. But some teeny part of me was holding out for a happier ending.

      But I'm glad it didn't;makes it much more truer.
    • 4/5
      Somehow, I forgot something very important about Russell that I should have remembered: how ruthlessly and thoroughly she likes to break your heart.

      At one time I knew. At one time I was a crumpled mess after reading The Sparrow, and then its sequel Children of God. Which were amazing books about faith and hope and massive cultural misunderstandings in first contact with an alien race. Still, somehow I was fooled. The word "grace" in the title. The blurb on the back that promises 43,000 Jews saved during the final phase of WWII. It's been a theme I keep looking for, lately. How to do good in evil times. How to recognize the full scope of evil when you're in it.

      Parts of this book are uplifting. Parts of this book will make you fear those with absolutely certainty even more than you already do. Her characters are amazing. Flawed, terrified, brave, determined. The risks some of them take are absolutely breathtaking. You will love them. Which is, of course, the danger.

      Spoilers ahead. Everyone fucking dies in the end. 43,000 Jews saved, right? You wouldn't know it from reading this book. Of course it's darkest before the dawn and the Nazis get vicious, wild, as they realize it's all crumbling before their eyes. But all this work. All this bravery and sacrifice. Can you remind me what it was for, Mary Doria Russell? As character after character falls, can you remind me what they bought with their lives? As far as I remember, two named characters survive in the end. One emigrates, lives a long life, never to speak of her war experiences with her children, who describe her as icy and feel they never knew her. One becomes an official in the post-war Italian government, which, when we last see it, is engaged in brutal recriminations against anyone viewed as Nazi sympathizers. Anyone who didn't resist hard enough and did what they could do to stay alive.

      No, there are at least two other characters who lived. But still. There is a moment, at the end of the book, where there was the perfect opportunity to send home, even in a wounded and exhausted way, the scope of what all this accomplished. Russell doesn't take it. I know, we try so hard to find things to feel good about in WWII, and maybe Russell thinks we shouldn't feel good. But then don't say this book is about grace, then, okay?

      Don't get me wrong. This is an amazing book. I cared so much and I learned so much. And I expected to end the book gutted, bleeding on the floor. I just thought she'd hand me some medicine, instead of telling me to go get some myself.
    • 4/5
      This is an intense and complex novel about the Italian resistance during WWII. I enjoyed it, but not as much as the first book I read by Russell, "The Sparrow". The plot followed a large cast of characters with complex relationships between them, and there were frequent changes in perspective. At first I found it particularly difficult to follow who was who, but as some of the initially distinct storylines started to overlap I enjoyed it more. Although the story was quite painful at times and many of the main characters die, one thing that Russell did very well is make her characters human; they made realistic and difficult choices in desperate times. Overall it is a strong, well-written book that portrays with compassion a dark and difficult time in human history.
    • 2/5
      Could't get past page 50!
    • 4/5
      Excellent - right up there in quality with her other works. Very well researched & detailed. A compelling story of an aspect of WWII history not often chronicled.
    • 5/5
      Audiobook performed by Cassandra Campbell Russell’s third novel leaves space and the future, and instead looks back on WW2 and the Italian citizens who saved the lives of thousands of Jews; not only their neighbors but refugees coming from other countries. It opens in September 1943, with fourteen-year-old Claudette Blum and her father. They’ve already fled Belgium and are in Paris, when they need to move once again. This time they will cross the Alps on foot, led by an Italian soldier. Eventually they are taken in by a farm family and come to know the villagers in the area. As the war progresses over the next few years we meet a large cast of characters that includes a German doctor who regrets his past, an Italian rabbi and his family, a priest, a British paratrooper, and a charismatic Italian resistance leader. What a story! Based on true incidents, Russell’s tale draws the reader into the lives of these many people. She gives us examples of true courage, from the fighters actively engaged in battle, to the grandmothers who carried messages or the Catholic nuns who sheltered Jewish children in large orphanages. I fell in love with these characters. Russell doesn’t sugarcoat the sacrifices and dangers they faced, nor does she make them saints. They squabble, succumb to temptations, and waver in their determination. They are also courageous and fiercely resistant to the evils of the Nazis. Out manned and out gunned by the Germans, this “army” of citizens nevertheless shows discipline and ingenuity when fighting. Their huge advantage is their intimate knowledge of the terrain and their fierce loyalty to one another. This is a war story, so I knew there would be death and destruction. Even though I expected this, some of these scenes brought me to tears. Russell tempers the sadness and horror with moments of great tenderness and even humor. I was lucky that I chose to listen to this audiobook while on a long road trip. I finished the 17-hours of listening in two day’s driving. Cassandra Campbell does a superb job performing the audiobook. She is a gifted voice artist and really brought the story and these characters to life.
    • 3/5
      September 1943: Italians have severed ties with Germany but that does not mean there is peace. Jewish refugees have crossed the Alps seeking asylum and found a makeshift sanctuary that teeters on the edge of danger for everyone in the small mountainside village. Who can they trust? Will their secret be discovered?This book hooked me at the start and then lost my attention in the middle, before getting me back near the end. I realized near the end that the narrative seemed rather stilted and flat— one short statement after another, strung along to present a scene with little emotion. Yes the story is intriguing and sad but the way it was presented did not resonate with me. Dialog was fine, but it was the in between. The writing was very detailed but I could not connect with the characters-- and there were a lot of them to follow. I know many loved this people loved this book, it was not a bad book but just not for me.
    • 3/5
      One really could never accuse Mary Doria Russell of not being diverse as a writer. I first read her science-fiction duology “The Sparrow/Children of God;” which explores issues of culture and religion through the story of a Jesuit first-contact space mission. Then I read “Doc,” an historical Western centered on Doc Holliday. Now – “Thread of Grace” – a WWII novel.

      The story centers on a less-well-known aspect of the war – Jewish refugees fleeing ahead of the Nazi occupation, entering Italy, and being aided by anti-fascist Italian partisans. At first it seems as if the book will be the story of teenage Jewish girl Claudette Blum and her budding romance with an Italian soldier who helps her and her grandfather – but the scope of the book quickly widens and encompasses a large number of different characters. In the end, the most memorable might be the alcoholic veteran & former flying ace Renzo Leoni, and his interactions with the Nazi deserter Doktor Schramm.

      The book is historically fascinating & definitely well written and well-researched – but I couldn’t help feeling that the plot was a little unfocused. Also, all the Italians are portrayed as virtually saintly. (In her afterword, Russell defends this choice, but I do think it weakened the book a little.) Themes include morality and forgiveness… and as one might assume from the setting, don’t expect too much upbeat cheeriness.
    • 5/5
      When Italy surrendered to the Allied Forces, it's soldiers retreated from the portion of France it had occupied, followed by Jewish refugees who had relied on Italy's disinterest in persecuting them. German troops in Italy became occupiers and began to enforce their own racial purity policies. Mary Doria Russell sets her novel in a fictional valley that leads into the Alps during these final years of the Second World War. A Thread of Grace follows a few families that, after having been unwelcome refugees in France, cross the Alps in street shoes and carrying the last bits of their former lives in battered suitcases, with the help of Italian soldiers who see these families as people desperately needing their help. And in a small city at the other end of the valley, a Rabbi and his family who have been instrumental in caring for the Jewish refugees from eastern Europe, face the decision of whether to go into hiding themselves or to stay in order to continue to help the Jews in Porto Sant'Andrea. Russell knows how to tell a story. A Thread of Grace weaves together several narratives, with a large cast of characters, but she always manages to make each character real and memorable, from Claudette Blum, a teenager coming of age missing her mother and younger brothers and forced to endlessly adjust to her changing circumstances, to Meisinger, an equally young German soldier who driver to the Grüppenfuhrer in the last days of the German occupation. This is a difficult book to put down. There's a great deal of derring-do, from the priest hiding money under his cassock to give to those households hiding Jews, acting against orders from Rome, to the Calabrian soldier who remains in the Alps in order to help the refugees and avoid conscription by the German Army, to a Grandmother who undertakes a dangerous task because sitting safely at home is too boring for her, there is always something going on, usually several things at once. And Russell never lets the reader forget that this isn't an adventure story and that the ending for far too many of the people involved isn't a celebration at the end of the war.
    • 2/5
      This is set in Italy during the last few years of World War II. As much as I figured out of the plot was from the start: 14-year old Jewish girl, Claudette, and her father are running from the Nazis into Italy. I didn't like it. I was bored and my mind wandered. I was very rarely interested in what was happening, and it seems that different names were used for the same person? Confusing. Claudette/Claudia was the most “obvious” one, but throughout the entire book, I didn't know if she was the same person or not. My mind wandered and I rarely was able to focus. As I looked at the character list (when I finished the book... it wasn't worth my time to look at it while I was reading, as I just wanted to get it done and move on), I confirmed that a few characters had multiple names.
    • 4/5
      "A reminder, nothing more: they are practiced at this, the Jews of Sainte-Gisele. For most, this is the second or third or fourth time they've fled the Wehrmacht or Gestapo or local police, moving from Austria or Czechoslovakia or Poland to Belgium or Holland or France. Many carry children. Most carry suitcases. Some have fashioned knapsacks from blankets and string. Leaderless, they will attempt to climb the Alps in street clothes, wearing whatever shoes are still intact after years on the run, one step ahead of the Nazis ... (24)Sep 8, 1943: fourteen year old Claudette Blum is a Belgian Jew who has taken refuge in Italian-occupied southern France with her father, an accountant who worked for a metal-ore company. When the Italians surrender their occupation, the Germans' arrival in France is eminent, and Claudette and her father, along with thousands of others, are again on the move. Claudette’s mother Paula and brothers David and Jacques have not yet arrived to France, and her father attempts to leave word for them. So begins their dangerous journey over theAlps towards Italy, where they hope to find safety now that the Italians have broken with Germany and forged a separate peace with the Allies; but they will discover that Italy is anything but peaceful. It has become a battleground for the Nazis, the Allies, resistance fighters, Jews in hiding, and Italian civilians trying to survive.Set against this dramatic historical background, A Thread of Grace follows the lives of several enticing characters: a disillusioned German doctor, a priest, a charismatic Italian resistance leader, and an Italian rabbi's family. Through these, it tells the little-known story of the vast underground effort of Italian citizens who saved 43,000 Jews during the final phase of the war.What I Liked/Didn’t: The novel is superbly written, its history rich, and its plot complex. Prior to reading, I did not even know of Italy’s WWII covert movement to save Jews from persecution. That said, I found this one very difficult to follow – in spite of a two-page list of characters at the front of the book. The characters, while interesting, were difficult to keep straight; and the locations within Italy changed every couple of pages. But history is not my forte, so others will undoubtedly have an easier time with it."Immense, intractable, incomprehensible, that conflict remains the pivot point of two centuries, the event that defines before and after. Hundreds of millions killed, wounded, maimed, displaced. The last survivors dying now. Their children and their grandchildren are fulfillment of Ezekiel's prophecy that the dry bones shall live again, but the poison still seeps down, contaminating generations. So much evil, so much destruction." (425)
    • 4/5
      Set in Italy during the dramatic finale of World War II - 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. This is not a Jewish Holocaust story, rather it is a novel based on the events happening in Italy from 1944 to the end of the war. The characters are a variety of citizens, clergy and resistance not one segment of more importance than another. I felt I had to finish this book once I started though at times I didn't like it.
    • 4/5
      Haunting tale of Jews & Catholics during the last years of WWII. Set mostly in Italy, with a cast of entirely believable characters, this book kept me up nights- at first reading, and then thinking. Excellent writing that made WWII alive for me in a way nothing I've read before has done.
    • 5/5
      This is an amazing novel, and I highly recommend it. It’s a great read. I’ve admired Russell’s sci-fi work; she’s a pithy, clear, strong writer.

      This historical novel is set in the Italian countryside in the waning years of World War 2. Italy has surrendered, and thousands of Jews cross the Alps hoping to find safety there, only to find the Germans have moved in to occupy the country. However, the social ties between Catholics and Jews are strong in Italy, and so Hitler’s persecution of the Jews doesn’t carry much weight there. People from all walks of life come together to hide the emigrants from the Nazis, and to build a strong resistance to the German occupation.

      The novel is a dense read, with a complex set of characters. But all of them are very real, and it’s worth keeping track of them. I was gripped, and also educated, as I didn’t know much about the partisans in Italy.