The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
I absolutely adored this book. I found it in my list of “books added” accidentally, having marked it there from a goodreads giveaway and then forgotten. Faced with a need for a good book, I bought it from audible and started listening to it the same day. 19 hours? Much longer than I usually like in an audiobook, but pretty soon I was snatching excuses to listen to it.
It’s a slower pace than I usually like in a book. I think that the Golem and the Jinni don’t meet until four hours into the narration. However, the level of detail in the characters more than made up for that. (The narrator did an excellent job as well) The golem and the jinni both have very different, very distinct characters (but change and grow as people) and so do the secondary and even tertiary characters. Wecker intersperses chapters telling the backstories of the wicked Yehuda Shalman, the tragic Ice Cream Sallah, and the discontented society girl Sophia Winston, the wise and hopeful Rabbi Mayer. The characters are sumptuously detailed, the city meticulously researched. I’ve a soft spot for late 19th century American history, so having a virtual tour through different ethnic neigborhoods was a real treat for me.
You could say that this book has underlying themes of servitude and free will, but what struck me was how these two powerful characters were more hampered than blessed by their gifts. Both are powerful, nearly immortal, have no need of sleep or food, and can speak any language effortlessly. Any one of these gifts would turn a normal human into a near-superhero, yet they spend as much time hiding their abilities as using them. Superman and spiderman always have villains to fight, but Chava and Ahmad’s main conflict is against the threat of discovery.
By the time the human antagonist appears and the plot starts rolling, Wecker’s characters are deeply rooted. I had a hard time stopping, wanting to listen to it until the end, finding excuses for things to do that didn’t involve taking the earphones out. The resolution, neither tragic nor too cheerful to be implausible, left me satisfied, with vague hopes of a sequel.
I recommend this book for people who like urban fantasy and people who like historical fiction.
