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Thus began years of reading, followed by intense research, German study, and survivor interviews, all of which culminated in Glazener's novel, Cup of Wrath. As she wrote, she checked her manuscript continually for accuracy with Eberhard and Renate Bethge.

The Bonhoeffer of Cup of Wrath "may not be the real Dietrich Bonhoeffer," she says in the preface, "but it is certainly the Dietrich Bonhoeffer who has become real to me."

Denise Giardina published three works of fiction before Saints and Villains appeared this year. In her two widely praised novels, Storming Heaven and The Unquiet Earth, Giardina drew on her own knowledge of coal-mining life in southern West Virginia. Her childhood in Appalachia also predisposed her to admire Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who believed that Christians must identify with the poor and outcast. (Early on, Bonhoeffer saw the similarity between the sufferings of blacks in America and Jews in Europe.) Once she began to write Saints and Villains, Giardina split her work between research and imagination, trying to capture the strong voice that comes through in Letters and Papers, but also following her own instincts as a storyteller. In the postscript to the novel, she explains her approach clearly:

In a work of fiction whose characters are based on people who actually lived, the reader will naturally wonder, "What really happened?" The novelist comes to the task of writing with the full understanding that a collection of facts does not make an engaging story, and that fact and truth are not necessarily synonymous. Furthermore, the question "What really happened?" is impossible to answer despite the claims to objectivity of some journalists and historians. This novel is a work of the imagination, first and foremost, and yet I hope it is also true. Some "facts" have been altered because of the demands of the story.

In conceiving a novel around the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, two good writers paused at the same fork in the road and then took separate directions. Glazener, a dramatist, hoped to bring Bonhoeffer to a wider audience of readers, yet couldn't justify messing around with the known facts. She chose the narrow path to the novel, at times skating perilously close to biography.

Giardina, on the other hand, wanted to follow the story where it would take her. She cut herself free from all but the basic structure of Bonhoeffer's life: his seminary study in America, his espionage work, prison time, and martyrdom. Since nobody, not even Bonhoeffer's closest friends, could have known his motivations for certain, Giardina felt free to choose the broader path of imagination and instinct. Near the end of the book, for example, she reveals some of Dietrich's thought through conversations with a fictitious Nazi, Alois Bauer, who snipes at him like Satan hassling Christ:

"So you see, Pastor Bonhoeffer, I've saved more Jews than you have. Tell me, whom does God love more? You or me?" He waited with arms folded.

Dietrich shut his eyes. "No doubt," he said at last, "God pities us both."

"That is no answer."

"No." …

Bauer threw up his hands. "You're an odd sort of pastor. How could you comfort anyone? With you, there is nothing final, nothing certain." He snapped his briefcase shut and turned to go.

"Wait," Dietrich said. "I have somewhat of an answer for you. I do not know which of us God loves best. But I hope it is you. However, I warn you, the love of God burns like fire. You will not be able to stand in the face of it."

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