The Hidden Palace, by Helene Wecker (2021)
The Hidden Palace picks up the characters from The Golem and the Jenni, but the reader need not have read the first book to enjoy this one. This novel takes place eight years after the first novel has ended and begins around 1900. There are several threads plots in this novel. Chava, the Jewish golem, and Ahmad, the Arabian jinni, have gone their separate ways haven’t seen each other in years. Sophia Winston, who became chilled following her affair with the jinni, has traveled to a desert Middle East to find a cure. Anne is working as a laundress and raising her young son. Interwoven into the lives of the characters, is a fair amount of history, as the world is on the brink of World War I.
Cheva realizes that as a golem, she never ages, while the people around her do. She realized that she could no longer work in the bakery, so attends a nearby college and gets a degree in that allows her to teach cooking. She reinvented herself as Charlotte Levy and landed a job at an orphanage academy. After the jinni’s partner died, he holed up in the building and cut himself off from the rest of the community and spent his time constructing with steel. Anne’s son landed a job as a Western Union messenger, which takes him around New York City.
While searching for a cure to her illness, Sophia encounteres a female jinni, whom she calls Dima. Dima has been banished from her tribe and is searching for the jinni who can touch steel (Ahmad). She promises Sophia a cure if she can bring her to Ahmad. Meanwhile, back in New York, the reader meets Kreindel, a young girl who studies Hebrew with her rabbi and assists him in making Yessele, another golem to be her protector.
In addition to a beautiful story, the author also gives us a glimpse of life in the New York tenements at the turn of the last century. I loved this book and look forward to other writings from this author.
Read: May 3, 2023
4 Stars
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