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The Golem and the Jinni

In Helen Wecker's debut novel, the Golem and the Jinni are opposites. The Golem finds purpose in servitude while the Jinni feels trapped by serving another. Wecker weaves these two seemingly different characters into a tangled web in her novel The Golem and the Jinni. Chava, a golem, and Ahmad, a jinni, find themselves in the foreign city of New York in 1899 and try to understand the world and people they encounter. What seems like a chance encounter turns out to be much more when Chava and Ahmad discover that they are not alone. While hiding their true identities to survive both struggle to understand the humans that surround them and both question how much their nature determines who they are and who they will become.

Wecker's novel weaves a web that revolves around the woman of clay and the man of fire. Her novel starts in a meticulous manner painting a clear picture of each character and how they arrived in New York. Each character's story reveals hints about how they come to intersect at a well crafted climax where Wecker's cast of characters reveal their true natures.

I enjoyed escaping into Wecker's world of 1899 New York. The detailed scenery and life-like protagonists consumed my imagination and compelled me to keep reading to the end. I loved reading about the internal conflict that the Golem and the Jinni experience. I would recommend this book to any reader who likes fantastical, reluctant heroes and who sometimes questions the ideas of human nature.

- Nina Golboro, Library Director