In her sophomore novel, Georgia Hunter turns her focus to the experience of Italy’s Jews during the waning years of the Second World War. One Good Thing follows protagonist Lili as she makes her way through the Italian countryside, constantly contending with twists and turns that threaten her survival. Along the way, she meets a cast of characters that support her and give readers a glimpse at those people resisting the Nazi regime.
The book begins in 1940 as Lili and her best friend, Esti, prepare to graduate university. Esti is pregnant and married. Casting a shadow over what should be a joyous moment is the looming Nazi presence; soon, Esti’s husband disappears when headed to Greece to help his parents. The two women are left alone to hide, protected by a group of Catholic priests and nuns. Eventually, the two best friends are separated and Lili, along with Esti’s child Theo, must flee into the countryside in order to avoid arrest and deportation. The majority of the novel takes place as Lili and Theo move from place to place, searching for safety.
One thing the book does extraordinarily well is introduce readers to aspects of the Italian World War Two experience that they might not encounter in other Holocaust novels. Some characters are real historical figures like Gino Bartali, the 1938 winner of the Tour de France, who hid maps in his bike and ferried information between cities under the guise of his training. Others are based on real people, like the Catholic priests and nuns who hid Lili and Theo, the forgers who helped them attain false papers, and the partisans fighting in the countryside who take them in for part of the novel.
Although the novel gives the Jewish perspective through Lili and Theo’s travels, it also shares the non-Jewish experience during the war. Italians were constantly at risk. Yet more often than not, the novel’s characters will choose to accept the risk of danger to themselves in order to do the right thing. Like any Holocaust novel, this book has its villains. But unlike its counterparts, it also has a greater dose of heroism, in ways both big and small.
Another place where this novel differs from others is that the American presence looms large. Cities were often at risk of getting caught in the crossfire of American bombs and Hunter makes her readers feel this potential threat. And through meeting Thomas, an American soldier, Hunter helps her readers understand why America is at war and what exactly is at stake. Whereas often the “liberators” show up in the final pages, One Good Thing gives the readers a deeper sense of just how hard the Allies fought to defeat the Nazis.
One Good Thing is a well-paced novel; at times exciting, and at other times tragic, this story will engage and move readers. Perhaps more than anything, readers will learn from this well researched and most humanizing of novels.
Rabbi Marc Katz is the Rabbi at Temple Ner Tamid in Bloomfield, NJ. He is author of the book The Heart of Loneliness: How Jewish Wisdom Can Help You Cope and Find Comfort (Turner Publishing), which was chosen as a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award.
