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FROM: "Nancy Almand" <[removed]@weld.lib.co.us>
REC'D: 12/7/04, 10:59 AM

Perhaps many of you already know, but since the Sparrow seems to come up
with great frequency on this list, and for so many of us it is a favorite
book, it is with great excitement to share that Mary Doria Russell finally
has a new book coming out! It is called the A Thread of Grace, with a street
date of Feb. 1.

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. 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.

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