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Narrated by Cassandra Campbell
Mary Doria RussellUnabridged — 19 hours, 54 minutes
Narrated by Cassandra Campbell
Mary Doria RussellUnabridged — 19 hours, 54 minutes
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I sense a tension in this writer, who seems torn between a desire to linger and explore her interesting creations more fully and a need to keep the action racing forward. The action wins. An addictive page-turner, A Thread of Grace satisfies our need to be reminded of how warmly inspiring humanity can be when it is moved to be generous, tolerant and forgiving.
— The Washington Post
Busy, noisy and heartfelt, this sprawling novel by Russell-a striking departure from her previous two acclaimed SF thrillers, The Sparrow and Children of God-chronicles the Italian resistance to the Germans during the last two years of WWII. Three cultures mingle uneasily in Porto Sant'Andrea on the Ligurian coast of northwest Italy-the Italian Jews of the village, headed by the chief rabbi Iacopo Soncini; the Italian Catholics, like Sant'Andrea's priest Don Osvaldo Tomitz, who befriend and shelter the Jews; and the occupying Germans invited by Mussolini's crumbling regime. In the last camp is the drunken, tubercular Nazi deserter, Doktor Schramm, a broken man who confesses to Don Osvaldo that while working in state hospitals and Auschwitz, he was responsible for murdering 91,867 people. Meanwhile, Jewish refugees in southern France, including Albert Blum and his teenage daughter, Claudette, are fleeing across the Alps to Italy, hoping to find sanctuary there. Russell pursues numerous narrative threads, including the Blums' perilous flight over the mountains; Italian Jew Renzo Leoni's personal coming to terms with his participation in the Dolo hospital bombing during the Abyssinian campaign in 1935; the dangerous frenzy of the Italian partisans; and the bloody-mindedness of German officers resolved to carry out Hitler's murderous racial policy despite mounting evidence of its futility. The action moves swiftly, with impressive authority, jostling dialogue, vibrant personalities and meticulous, unexpected historical detail. The intensity and intimacy of Russell's storytelling, her sharp character writing and fierce sense of humor bring fresh immediacy to this riveting WWII saga. Agent, Jane Dystel. (Feb. 1) Forecast: This is a worthy successor to high-caliber, crowd-pleasing WWII novels like Corelli's Mandolin or The English Patient. With the publisher firmly behind it-Russell will embark on a 12-city author tour-expect substantial sales. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
In 1943, teenaged Claudette Blum scales the Alps with her father, hoping to find sanctuary in Italy. It took the author of the highly regarded The Sparrow five years to research this book, which highlights the network of Italians who saved 43,000 Jewish lives during World War II. With a 12-city author tour. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Stateless Jews find refuge in the valleys of northwest Italy, thanks to the humanity of supposedly thick-witted peasants: a rich, rewarding, and well-researched tale of WWII. Piedmont, the province north of Genoa, in the lee of the Maritime Alps, is now largely off the American tourist map. But in 1943, when the Italian Fascists surrendered to the advancing allies, Piedmont was desperately attractive to the thousands of Jewish refugees who were forced to flee the Germans marching into the political vacuum in Mussolini's former European territories. Brutal as the Italian fascists were, they had been notoriously slow to turn over their Jews to Germans, and the Piemontesi had a reputation for sanctuary. In his third outing, science-fiction author Russell (Children of God, 1998, etc.) weaves oral and written histories and a large cast into a fast moving story that switches back and forth between the scarcely populated agricultural valleys at the edge of the Alps and fictitious Porto Sant'Andrea, an unexceptional industrial city somewhere on the Ligurian coast. An odd coalition of native Italian Jews, Roman Catholic clergy, communists, and unaffiliated anti-Fascists, have united in a conspiracy to protect the stream of refugees coming on foot through the mountain passes from France at the very moment that the Nazis are turning against their former Italian hosts. The masterminds of the Italo-Jewish effort are Lidia Leoni, an aristocratic and supremely sophisticated communist and her boozy, brilliant, protean son Renzo, a much-decorated flier haunted by his role in Italy's Ethiopian adventure. Knowing the efficiency and ruthlessness of the Germans who now hold power in Porto Sant' Andrea, theLeonis steer money and refugees to the tiny hamlets in Valdottavo, where peasants have already begun to harbor Transalpine guests. The one "good" German in Russell's adventure is Werner Schramm, a doctor in flight from his past as an obedient euthanizer and witness to the death camps who is now witness to the humanity of the Jews and the charity of the mountain peasants. Beautiful, noble, fascinating, and almost unbearably sad. Agent: Jane Dystel/Dystel & Goderich Literary Management
A powerfully imagined novel . . . [a] profoundly moving book that engages the heights and depths of human experience.”—Los Angeles Times
“An addictive page-turner . . . [Mary Doria] Russell has an astonishing story to tell—full of action, paced like a rapid-fire thriller, in tense, vivid scenes that move with cinematic verve.”—The Washington Post Book World
“Hauntingly beautiful, utterly unforgettable.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“Rich . . . Based on the heroism of ordinary people, [A Thread of Grace] packs an emotional punch.”—People
“[A] deeply felt and compellingly written book . . . The progress of each character’s life is marked or measured by acts of grace. . . . Russell is a smart, passionate and imaginative writer.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer
“A feat of storytelling . . . an important book [that] needs to be widely read.”—Portland Oregonian
“Mary Doria Russell’s fans (and aren’t we all?) will rejoice to see her new novel on the shelves. A Thread of Grace is as ambitious, beautiful, tense, and transforming as any of us could have hoped.”—Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club
“Fans of Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow and Children of God will be thrilled by her masterful new novel. A Thread of Grace is a rich, multi-layered narrative that offers fresh insight into a devastating time in world affairs. A story of love and war, it speaks to the resilience and beauty of the human spirit in the midst of unimaginable horror. It is, unquestionably, a literary triumph.”—David Morrell, author of The Brotherhood of the Rose and First Blood
“Essential reading for people who love Italy. You will lose yourself completely in this ecumenical epic of Italians working together to save Jewish refugees during the German Occupation of 1943-1944. Russell has a deep empathy for her characters and writes with genius about the horrors of guerrilla war. This wholly absorbing historical novel ends with perhaps the most moving coda in fictional history.”—Susan Cahill, author/editor of Desiring Italy and The Smiles of Rome
WWII stories by and large focus on Germany, the United States or England. A fascinating account, Russell’s historical novel spotlights the true story of the Italian civilian underground effort that resulted in the safe passage of 43,000 Jews at the end of the war. Jay Gregory’s broadcast-style narration complements the historical side of this story in 1940s newsreel chic. His characterizations of a rabbi’s family, an Italian priest, a repentant and evil German doctor, and numerous other characters are convincing, and accents are dead-on as these characters move over the Alps, desperately seek refuge and safety, or seek forgiveness with their god. This chronological novel is the result of five years of diligent research by the author, and the telling of it is its crowning achievement. B.J.P. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine
| BN ID: | 2940169121810 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penguin Random House |
| Publication date: | 02/15/2005 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Greater Italy 1943 Anno Fascista XXII
8 September 1943
Porto Sant'Andrea, Liguria Northwestern Coast of Italy
A simple answer to a simple question. That's all Werner Schramm requires.
"Where's the church?" he yells, belligerent and sick--sicker yet when his shout becomes a swampy cough.
A small crowd gathers to appreciate the spectacle: a Waffen-SS officer, thin, fortyish, and liquored up. He props his hands against his knees, coughing harder. "La basilica!" he gasps, remembering the Italian. "San Giovanni--dove è?"
A young woman points. He catches the word campanile, and straightens, careful of his chest. Spotting the bell tower above a tumble of rooftops that stagger toward the sea, he turns to thank her. Everyone is gone.
No matter. Downhill is the path of least resistance for a man who's drunk himself legless. Nearer the harbor, the honeyed light of the Italian Riviera gilds wrecked warehouses and burnt piers, but there's not much bomb damage inland. No damned room for an explosion, Schramm thinks.
Jammed between the Mediterranean and the mountains, the oldest part of Porto Sant'Andrea doesn't even have streets--just carrugi: passages barely wide enough for medieval carts. Cool and shadowy even at noon, these masonry ravines wind past the cobblers' and barbers' shops, apothecaries, vegetable stands, and cafés wedged at random between blank-walled town houses with shuttered windows.
Glimpses of the bell tower provide a sense of direction, but Schramm gets lost twice before stumbling into a sunny little piazza. He scowls at the light, sneezes, wipes his watering eyes. "Found you!" he tells the Basilica di San Giovanni Battista. "Tried t'hide, but it didn' work!"
San Giobatta, the locals call this place, as though John the Baptist were a neighborhood boy, poor and charmless but held in great affection. Squatting on a granite platform, the dumpy little church shares its modest courtyard with an equally unimpressive rectory and convent, their builder's architectural ambition visibly tempered by parsimony. Broad stripes of cheap black sandstone alternate with grudgingly thin layers of white Carrara marble. The zebra effect is regrettable.
Ineffective sandbags surround the church, its southeast corner freshly crumpled and blackened by an Allied incendiary bomb. A mob of pigeons waddle through the rubble, crapping and cooing. "The pope speaks lovely German," Schramm informs them. "Nuncio to Berlin before he got his silly hat. Perhaps I ought to go to Rome and confess to Papa Pacelli!"
He laughs at his own impertinence, and pays for it with another coughing fit. Eyes watering, hands trembling, he drops onto the basilica staircase and pulls out the battered flask he keeps topped up and nestled near his heart. He takes small sips until brandy calms the need to cough, and the urge to flee.
Prepared now, he stands. Squares his shoulders. Advances resolutely on massive doors peopled with bronzed patriarchs and tarnished virgins. Curses with surprise when they won't yield to his tug. "I want a pries'!" he yells, rapping on the door, first with his knuckles and then more insistently with the butt of his Luger.
Creaking hinges reveal the existence of a little wooden side door. A middle-aged nun appears, her sleeves shoved into rubber gauntlets, her habit topped by a grimy apron. Frowning at the noise, she is short and shaped like a beer keg. Her starched white wimple presses pudgy cheeks toward a nose that belongs on a propaganda Jew.
Christ, you're homely.
Schramm wipes his mouth on his sleeve, wondering if he has spoken aloud. For years, words have threatened to pour out, like blood from his throat. He fears hemorrhage.
Shivering in the heat, he makes a move toward the door. The nun bars his way. "La chiesa è chiusa!" she says, but Schramm pushes past her.
The baptistry reeks of carbolic, incense, explosives, and charred stone. Three novices scour its limestone floor. The prettiest sits on her heels, her face smudged with soot from the firebomb's damage. Calmly, she studies the Luger dangling in this German's right hand. Behind him, Sister Beer Keg snaps her fingers. Eyes drop. Work resumes.
Schramm shoves the pistol into its holster, pulls off his campaign cap, and rubs a sweaty palm over cropped brown hair. The nave is empty apart from a single man who ambles down the center aisle, neck cranked back like a cormorant's, hands clasped loosely behind his back. This personage studies the swirling seraphim and whey-faced saints above, himself an allegorical portrait come to life: Unconcern in a Silver-Gray Suit.
Distracted by the tourist, Schramm takes a step toward the confessionals and trips over a bucket of water. "Scheisse," he swears, hopping away from the spill.
"Basta!" the fat nun declares, pulling him toward the door.
"Io need ein padre!" he insists, but his Italian is two decades old--the fading souvenir of a year in Florence. The Beer Keg shakes her head. Standing his ground, Schramm points at a confessional. "Un padre, understand?"
"La chiesa è chiusa!"
"I know the church is closed! But I need--"
"A strong black coffee?" the tourist suggests pleasantly. His German is Tyrolean, but there's no mistaking the graceful confidence of an Italian male who employs a superb tailor. "A medical officer!" he says, noting the insignia on Schramm's collar. "You speak the language of Dante most vigorously, Herr Doktor, but the people of this region generally use a Ligurian dialect, not the classical Italian you are--"
"Butchering," Schramm supplies, with flat accuracy.
"Striving for, one might have said. With your permission, I can explain to Suora Marta that you're seeking a priest who speaks German."
Schramm listens hard, but their dialect is as thick as an Austrian's head, and he gives up until the tourist translates. "Suora tells me Archbishop Tirassa's assistant speaks excellent German. Confessions, however, will not be heard again until Saturday." When Schramm begins to protest, the Italian holds up a conciliatory hand. "I shall point out that in time of war, the angel of death is more capricious than usual. Preparation for his arrival should not be delayed."
The man's voice becomes a soothing melody of persuasion and practicality. Schramm watches Suora Marta's face. She reminds him of his mother's sister, a Vincentian nun equally short and dumpy and ugly. "Like Papa used t'say, 'Christ'll take what nobody else wants.' "
"And so there is hope, even for pigs like you," the nun replies.
Schramm's jaw drops. A stunned laugh escapes his interpreter. Eyes fearlessly on Schramm's own, Suora Marta removes her rubber gloves and apron. Without hurry, she untucks her habit, straightens her gown, folds her outer sleeves back to the proper cuff length. Hands sliding beneath her scapular, she gives Schramm one last dirty look before gliding away with chubby dignity.
Schramm tips a mouthful of brandy down his throat. "Verdammte Scheisse! Why didn' you tell me she speaks German?"
"I didn't know! As a general rule, however, courtesy has much to recommend it in any language. This is a small port, but many of us have a working knowledge of German," the man continues, deflecting the conversation ever so slightly. "We've done a fair amount of business with Venezia Giulia since 1918--. Pardon! No doubt you would call the region Adriatisches Küstenland."
"Mus' cost a fortune for new stationery every time the border moves," Schramm remarks, offering the brandy.
"Printers always prosper." The Italian raises the flask in salute and takes a healthy swallow. "If you won't be needing me anymore . . . ?"
Schramm nods, and the man strolls off toward an alcove, pausing to admire a fresco of the Last Judgment that Schramm himself finds unnecessarily vivid. Searching for a place to sit, Schramm gets a fix on some pews near the confessionals, takes another sip from the flask. "No retreat!" he declares. Probably aloud.
The tourist's slow circuit of the church is punctuated by murmurs of dismay. A fifteenth-century baptismal font is damaged. A colorful jumble of shattered glass lies beneath a blown-out window. "Verdamm' Tommies," Schramm mutters. "British claim're only bombing military sites, but Hamburg is rubble! Dehousing the workers, that's what they call it. Terrorflieger, we call it. Leverkusen, München. Köln, Düsseldorf. Rubble, all of them! Did you know that?"
"We hear only rumor these days, even with the change in government," the Italian replies, declining comment on Mussolini's recent fall from power.
Schramm waves his flask at the damage before taking another pull. "RAF pilots're so fugging inaggurate--" Schramm tries again. "They are so . . . fucking . . . inaccurate." Satisfied with his diction, he swivels his head in the direction of his new friend. "They call it a hit if they aim at a dock and smash a church!"
"Very sloppy," the Italian agrees. "A shocking lack of professional pride!"
Slack-jawed, Schramm's skull tips back of its own accord. He stares at the painted angels wheeling above him until his hands lose track of what they're supposed to be doing and the flask slips from his fingers. He aims his eyes at the floor, where the last of the liquor is pooling. "Tha's a pity," he mourns. Laboriously, he lifts first one foot and then the other onto the pew, sliding down until he is prone. "Fat ol' nun," he mutters. Pro'ly never committed a sin in her whole life . . .
A sharp noise awakens him. Coughing and crapulous, Schramm struggles to sit up. His confessor hasn't arrived, but chunks of stone have been neatly stacked by the door. Sweeping shards of colored glass into a pile, the Italian flirts gallantly with the novices. The pretty one flirts back, dimpling when she smiles.
Schramm slumps over the back of the pew in front of him, cushioning his brow on folded arms. "I'm going to be sick," he warns a little too loudly.
The Italian snaps his fingers. "Suora Fossette! The bucket!" The newly christened Sister Dimples scrambles to deliver it, and only just in time. "Allow me," the gentleman says, courteous as a headwaiter while Schramm pukes into the dirty water.
Swiping at his watering eyes with trembling hands, Schramm accepts the proffered handkerchief. "Touris', translator . . . now you're a nurse!"
"A man of endless possibilities!" the Italian declares, setting the bucket aside.
He has a face off a fresco: bent-nosed and bony, but with a benign expression. Old enough to be tolerantly amused by another's disgrace. Someone who might understand . . . Schramm wants to tell this kindly stranger everything, but all that comes out is "I was tryin' t'make things better."
"Always a mistake," the Italian remarks. "Where are you staying, Oberstabsarzt? Would you like to come back another day?"
Schramm shakes his head stubbornly. "'Dammte Schpageddi-Fresser. Italians're always late! Where is that shit of a priest?"
"Lie down, Herr Doktor." Schramm feels his legs lifted onto the pew. "Rest your eyes. The priest will come, and then we'll get you back where you belong."
"No, thank you," Schramm says firmly. "Hell exists, you know. Any combat soldier can tell you that." The other man stops moving. "I knew you'd un'erstan'! So heaven's real, too! Logic, ja?"
Their moment of communion is over. "I myself am not a devout Catholic," the Samaritan informs him regretfully. "My opinions about heaven and hell needn't trouble you."
"Righ' . . . righ'." Almost asleep, Schramm mumbles, "You're not a bad fellow . . ."
Moments later, he is snoring like a tank engine, and does not hear the hoot of delighted laughter that echoes through the basilica. "Did you hear that, Sisters?" his intepreter asks. "The Nazi says I'm not a bad fellow!"
"For a spaghetti chomper," Suora Fossette amends solemnly.
Musical giggles are quickly stifled when swift footsteps and whispering fabric announce a priest's approach. "Grüss Gott, mein Herr," he says, shooting a stern look at the novices. "I am Osvaldo Tomitz, secretary to His Excellency Archbishop Tirassa."
"Don Osvaldo! Piacere: a pleasure to meet you!" says a well-dressed civilian. "I'm Renzo Leoni."
Tomitz's confusion is plain. Suora Marta undoubtedly told him that the man wishing to confess is an obnoxious German drunk. "How may I be of service to you, signor?"
"Ah, but I am not the one who sought your services, Don Osvaldo." Leading the way toward the confessionals, Leoni presents a Waffen-SS officer passed out cold on a pew.
Nose wrinkling at the sour smell of vomit and brandy, Tomitz snorts. "So that's the Aryan superman we've heard so much about."
"Yes. Disappointing, really," Leoni concurs, but his eyes are on the priest. "Tomitz, Tomitz . . . You're from Trieste, aren't you? Your family's in shipping!"
Don Osvaldo draws himself up, surprised by recognition. In his early forties, of medium height and medium weight, with medium-brown hair framing regular features, not one of which is memorable, Osvaldo Tomitz must introduce himself repeatedly to people who have already met him. "My father was with Lloyds Adriatico. We moved here when the Genoa office opened a branch in Sant'Andrea. How did you know?"
"The name is Austrian. The German is Habsburg. The Italian is Veneto. Ergo: Trieste! As for the rest? I cheated: my father was a commercial photographer. Lloyds was a good customer. I met your father when I was a boy. You must have been in seminary by then. How is Signor Tomitz?"
"He passed away last year. I was teaching at Tortona. I asked for a position here so I could be nearer my mother."
"My sympathies, Don Osvaldo. My mother, too, is a widow."
Satisfied to have established a connection, Leoni returns his attention to the drunk. With an almost professional efficiency, he pats the Nazi down and removes the man's wallet. "Herr Doktor Oberstabsarzt Werner Schramm is with the Waffen-SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, Hausser's Second Armored Corps, late of the Russian front . . . Currently staying at the Bellavista. He's in Sant'Andrea on two weeks' leave." Leoni looks up, puzzled.
"Odd," Osvaldo agrees. "To come from such a hell, and spend his leave in Sant'Andrea?"
"Why not Venice, I wonder? Or Florence, or Rome?" Leoni glances apologetically at the frescoes. "No offense, Padre, but San Giobatta is not exactly a top draw." Leoni replaces the wallet and resumes his frisk. Withdrawing a silver cigarette case, he offers its contents to the priest with exploratory hospitality. "Prego! Take half," he urges. "Please--I'm sure the doctor would insist."
"He's not a bad fellow," one of the novices comments, "for a Nazi."
"Suora!" Don Osvaldo cries.
Dimples disappearing, the white-veiled sister scrubs virtuously at the mosaics, but Leoni's laughter fills the basilica. Disarmed, Don Osvaldo scoops his half of the cigarettes out of the case. Leoni offers a light. "American," Osvaldo notes with some surprise, examining the fine white tissue paper. "I wonder where he--"
"Smoking in a church!" Suora Marta grumbles, trundling down the aisle. Already annoyed, she smells vomit, and her mouth twists. "Swine!" she snaps at the insensible German.
"Judge not, Suora!" Leoni reminds her piously. "I'm inclined to respect a soldier who has to get that drunk before confession. He must have an admirable conscience to be so ashamed."
She holds out a hand. "Give me the rest."
Leoni's brows shoot upward. "Santo cielo! Do you smoke, Suora?"
"Don't waste my time, Leoni. Tobacco's better than gold on the black market. We've got orphans to feed."
Excerpted from A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell Copyright ©2005 by Mary Doria Russell. Excerpted by permission of Random House, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
