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Loading... A Thread of Grace: A Novelby Mary Doria Russell
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. This title was our October 09 selection. We met at Gail's house for a wonderful repast featuring the foods mentioned in the book. The discussion was rich and intense, with the majority of readers feeling they had gained new perspective from the story but also exhausted and wrung out from the events and lives portrayed.   Bibliofemmes | Nov 7, 2009 |  This is a story about some of the victims of World War II. It's about Jews running from Hitler, looking for safety, and it's about the people of Italy who helped them. It's a fictional account of peasants, priests, officials, soldiers, and ordinary residents of villages and farms who ran for safety, offered up their homes, worked in disguise, and sometimes sacrificed themselves to help their fellow man, regardless of their nationality or religion. I liked the characters of this book and hoped for their safety. It's evident that the author has done quite a lot of research and put a lot of time into this book. If I had anything negative to say about it, I might say that the details of troop movements and the sheer number of characters make the book hard to follow at times. (  ) pbarber42 | Sep 7, 2009 | I found this something of a let-down, having read Russell's The Sparrow. That book took a handful of characters and established a rapport with them which allowed Russell to tell a fascinating and complex story about humanity; A Thread of Grace attempts something similar on a larger scale, but it fails to convince. Russell does well at establishing a sense of period—northwestern Italy in the latter part of the Second World War, when the first signs of defeat were urging the Nazis on to greater acts of cruelty, and thousands of Italians sheltered Jewish refugees in their homes—and there is an unrelenting, photorealistic quality to her writing which is marvellous, if occasionally unsettling. (This is not a book to read if you have a weak stomach.) Yet I think her cast of characters was too large, diffusing some of the impact of what Russell was attempting; just as I was beginning to get involved with one character, they would disappear from the narrative or would be killed, while a number of very minor characters were given large swathes of backstory for no reason that I could fathom. It felt rather a mish-mash at times. One minor, but continuous annoyance, was Russell's insistence at points on trying to capture dialect by writing phonetically—it's a technique which, to me, always seems a little patronising. ( )2  siriaeve | Jun 12, 2009 | WWII, Mussolini had surrendered Italy to Hitler. Disillusioned where this war was going A small group of Italian Soldiers part of the resistance had taken it upon themselves to save the lives of Jewish refugees from the work camps and execution from Nazi soldiers by escorting them on an arduous journey through a mountain pass, selflessly sacrificing there lives to save others. Along the way Italian citizens just ordinary people all learning to survive the horrors of War and its brutality, they extended their hand of friendship. In many cases showing peoples different sides of good and evil, which at times could be heartbreaking. This is the first book I've read written by Mary Doria Russell, it was given to me and it turned out to be a wonderful surprise. Ms Russell had spent five years researching to find the essence to this engrossing story. Based on the true story of the Italian resistance who were to have saved ten of thousands of jews during the final phases of the second world war. Although this book is fictional, the plot is strong, vivid characters and many emotional tragedies. The only drawback would be some parts could be confusing, there are a lot of characters racing through this book with many different view points to keep track of, but if you can grasp it and keep track of it, this is a beautiful read. It's a wonderful achievement. Andrea Bowhill (  )1 EmmaLadyHamilton | May 11, 2009 | Outstanding story about the last two years of WWII in German occupied northwestern Italy. Lengthy list of characters and frequent referral to maps did not diminish enjoyment of the story of the partisans led by Renzo Leoni in their fight against the Nazis to save Italian Jews as well as those escaping over the border from German occupied France and Austria. Russell paints a finely detailed picture and kept me turning pages well into the night. Her characterizations of the main players is absolutely fascinating but be prepared for a sad, sad ending. Excellent. (  )2 brenzi | Mar 23, 2009 |  no reviews | add a review
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The rich fictional narrative is woven through the factual military maneuvers and political games at the end of WW II, sharing a little-known story of a group of Italian citizens that sheltered more than 40,000 Jews from grueling work camp executions. Rather than the bleak and hopeless feeling that might be expected, the novel has the opposite effect; it reminds us that just as there will always be war, crime, and death, so too will there be good people who selflessly sacrifice themselves to ease the suffering of others. Perhaps best of all, Russell succinctly opens and closes her writing with short pieces that bookend the story with the force of a freight train. Her moving finale wraps up her narrative in the present day, with a death bed scene that's sure to rip the heart out of readers of every faith and ancestry.
On the surface, Russell's third novel may seem quite different from her earlier works. Both The Sparrow and its sequel, Children of God , were futuristic stories about Earth's first contact with alien life forms, but a closer look reveals several similarities. Fans of her earlier books will be pleased to find that Emilio Sandoz, the charismatic Jesuit priest from the first two books, finds new life in Renzo Leoni--A Thread of Grace's charming and haunted chameleon. The two have different circumstances and histories, but both characters are made of the same cloth--tormented by their consciences and plagued by unrequited love. Also similar to her earlier books, the characters in A Thread of Grace don't all enjoy a happy ending. A note in the reader's guide tells us that Russell flipped a coin to determine the fate of some of the characters. This may be upsetting for many readers, particularly those used to Hollywood endings, but it does serve as a frank reminder of the arbitrary nature of war and death. --Victoria Griffith
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:19 -0400)
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