Mary Doria Russell Reading
Mary Doria Russell reads fromA Thread of Grace, a work of historical fiction. Russell explains her choice to write about Jewish Italians during World War II, claiming that approximately 85% of Jewish Italians survived the Holocaust. Russell sought to explore why the survival rate was so high, and thus performed numerous interviews with Italians who had survived the war. She discusses how the emphasis on family, community, and loyalty within Italian culture informed the brave actions of Italians that hid and aided Jews during the war.
During a question and answer session, Russell outlines the ways that writing a work of historical fiction differed from her past works of science fiction. When asked why she did not choose to write a nonfiction work after all of her research, Russell points out that it was very important for the stories to retain the emotion of the time. She explains that she wanted the reader to understand that survival was the result of pure luck; that no one could possibly predict the outcomes of any situation. To reiterate her point, Russell shares that she literally flipped a coin to decide whether each character in her novel would die or survive.
Russell, a Jewish woman of Italian heritage much like her characters, explains her decision to convert to Judaism. She points out that her husband is not Jewish; she solely converted to Judaism when she became a mother and wanted to raise her son “with the morality that came from a religion.”
In: "Live from Prairie Lights" Audio Archive | Fiction
Authors: Mary Doria Russell
Date Recorded: February 08, 2005
Works Read: A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell
Program: Live From Prairie Lights
Format: reading
Contributors: Introduction by host Julie Englander.
Topics: historical fiction, Holocaust, Italy, historical research