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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抯 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抯 many fans and
earn her even more.
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