Photo by Sheldon Wecker
Helene Wecker is the author of the new novel The Gates of Midnight. It's the third in her The Golem and the Jinni trilogy. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Q: The Gates of Midnight is the third in your The Golem and the Jinni trilogy--how have your characters Chava and Ahmad changed over the course of the series?
A: They've changed quite a lot since The Golem and the Jinni! Most of The Gates of Midnight takes place in 1930, which means that Chava and Ahmad have spent 30 years in the human world.
They're much better at fitting in, though they still have to deal with the mental and emotional costs of pretending to be something they're not. They've formed friendships and communities, however tenuous at times, and they've both lost people who mattered to them.
Chava has learned to control her own instincts to some extent, though often that means isolating herself from society at large. Ahmad is no longer quite so arrogant and self-centered, and he's learned to take the needs of others into account. They're more complicated people now, with conflicting needs and desires.
Q: What inspired the plot of this new novel?
A: I knew that I had to write a proper ending to Chava and Ahmad's story, one that would do them justice.
Since The Golem and the Jinni was about the shock of arriving as an immigrant, and The Hidden Palace explored the subject of assimilation, I decided that The Gates of Midnight had to be about immigration's legacy, the way that one generation's memories and hopes and burdens are handed down to the generations that follow.
Once I'd set that as the theme, I knew that the plot had to involve Yehudah Schaalman somehow. That buried flask was just sitting there in the wings, waiting to be found!
I also wanted to bring back a few characters who we'd seen as children in the first two books, so I could show how their interactions with Chava and Ahmad had changed the course of their lives. And once I'd decided who and what I wanted to bring back, it was a matter of constructing a plot that would connect them all together.
Q: How did you research the book, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?
A: The Gates of Midnight takes place in a transitional moment in U.S. history: the impending end of Prohibition and the very beginning of the Great Depression. I didn't know much about the era beyond what I'd learned in high school and through popular culture, so it was clear I'd have to do my research.
I began with a number of history books, the most important of which was Michael A. Lerner's Dry Manhattan: Prohibition in New York City. Lerner lays out the social movements that led first to Prohibition and then its defeat, all seen through the lens of New York City culture and politics.
I'd known about the Temperance movement, but I hadn't realized just how much they relied on nativism and the demonization of immigrants as a tactic -- subtly at first, but then blatantly during the rise of speakeasy culture and organized crime that resulted from Prohibition.
Basically, if you were Irish, Italian, or Jewish, you were blamed for infecting upright Americans with your dissolute ways. It was fascinating reading, and chilling too, considering the current rise of anti-immigrant sentiment. History really does move in cycles.
Q: What do you see as the role of religion in the novel?
A: Religion and faith are often a huge part of that legacy of expectations I mentioned earlier, especially when the received traditions of the old country run up against the freedoms of the New World.
I think the character in The Gates of Midnight who most embodies this tension is Kreindel Altschul, who first appeared in The Hidden Palace. Kreindel is the daughter of a deeply traditional Orthodox Jewish rabbi, but she spent much of her childhood in a Reform Jewish orphanage that "Americanized" its children -- all while she kept her secret golem companion Yossele hidden in the basement!
In The Gates of Midnight, Kreindel's now the headmistress of an Orthodox girls' orphanage in Brooklyn. She's unmarried in her 30s and spends her spare hours studying Torah, which makes her a very unconventional woman by the Orthodox standards of the time.
The teachings of her faith are precious to her, but those same teachings also say that Torah study is a man's role and that she's sinning in her refusal to marry and have children.
On top of all that she knows the secret truth about Chava and Ahmad. These secrets are a gift, but they also isolate her even further from the rest of the world, and the struggle leads her into dangerous territory.
Q: What are you working on now? Will you bring these characters back at some point?
A: Right now I'm working on a book idea that's more straight-up fantasy (maybe with a little sci-fi thrown in) and set in a totally invented world. Basically I wanted to write something that didn't involve a ton of research for a change!
As for coming back to my characters, I think my time with Chava and Ahmad has come to a close, but I might revisit a few of the supporting cast members someday...
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: It's been over 20 years since I wrote the first pages of what would become The Golem and the Jinni. I'm so grateful that my readers were willing to be patient as I laboriously cranked out each volume.
It's a relief to finally have the whole trilogy out there, and at the same time it's hard not to feel a little melancholy about it. I'll miss writing Chava and Ahmad -- but I suspect they're too much a part of me now to ever fully leave!
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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