The story here is big and bold—in plot, characterizations, setting, and tone—and it creates a culturally rich view of New York in the early part of the 20th century and particularly in the Syrian and Jewish communities. Woven into this portrait is the story of two mythological creatures—Chava, a golem from Jewish folklore who is made of clay and is highly attuned to the thoughts of others, and Ahmad, a jinni from Arabian mythology with the ability to fly, change shape, and lead men astray. Both create human lives for themselves, where Chava works as a baker and a laundress while longing for more, while Ahmad has partnered with a Syrian metal worker.
There are also multiple human characters in a series of storylines that eventually converge: Sophia Winston, a beautiful young socialite who needs to travel to the Middle East to find a cure after her short affair with the jinni causes a mysterious illness; young Kreindel, the orphaned daughter of a mystical rabbi who tries to negotiate her time in an orphanage with her big secret hidden in a disused school alcove; Toby, a messenger boy who is puzzled by the odd occurrences related to his mother’s friend Chava; Maryam Fadool who owns a cafe in Little Syria and oversees the welfare of the jinni from a distance; Dima, an unreliable and injured jinniyeh who may be Sophia’s only hope for a cure.
How these characters and major events of the time period come together, including the Titanic, the Lusitania, the war, the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire, is an involving story told with suspense and beautiful writing that is often poetic. Here, Ahmad (the jinni’s) metalworking is described: “He worked in midair, upon a slender iron scaffold, a five-story drop at his back. Days and nights went uncounted, unnoticed. The filtered sunlight entered first one set of windows, then another. His life was heat and movement; his thoughts were in the sounds of flame and wind as much as human words. The forge sustained him, it was his companion and his storyteller, whispering to him from the past.”
Although the mythological creatures may be off-putting to some who like straight historical fiction, they provide a special interest and depth to the story and stand in as foils to the human characters. Chava and Ahmad both have special abilities due to their natures, but they are also limited in ways that humans aren’t, particularly in relation to their emotional capacity. Their view into human life as well as their interaction with it produce some wonderfully intense observations about the human condition and the state of the world during this time period.
From Sidney Taylor’s All-of-a-Kind Family (1951) to Elizabeth Acevedo’s Clap When You Land (2020), the immigrant story in New York City is an endlessly fascinating one, and few provide the depth that Helene Wecker does in The Hidden Palace, a follow-up to her novel
The Golem and the Jinni. The novel can be read on its own, although the first one provides more understanding of these characters and is another entertaining read. Highly recommended.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy.
