The Golem and the Jinni by Wecker

The Golem and the Jinni by Wecker

"An intoxicating fusion of fantasy and historical fiction. . . . Wecker's storytelling skills dazzle." --Entertainment Weekly

A marvelous and absorbing debut historical fantasy novel about a chance meeting between two supernatural creatures in turn-of-the-century immigrant New York. 

Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay by a disgraced rabbi knowledgeable in the ways of dark Kabbalistic magic. She serves as the wife to a Polish merchant who dies at sea on the voyage to America. As the ship arrives in New York in 1899, Chava is unmoored and adrift until a rabbi on the Lower East Side recognizes her for the creature she is and takes her in.

Ahmad is a jinni, a being of fire born in the ancient Syrian desert and trapped centuries ago in an old copper flask by a Bedouin wizard. Released by a Syrian tinsmith in a Manhattan shop, Ahmad appears in human form but is still not free. An iron band around his wrist binds him to the wizard and to the physical world.

Chava and Ahmad meet accidentally and become friends and soul mates--unlikely souls connected despite their opposing natures. But when the golem's violent nature overtakes her one evening, their bond is challenged. An even more powerful threat will emerge, however, and bring Chava and Ahmad together again, challenging their very existence and forcing them to make a fateful choice.

Compulsively readable, The Golem and the Jinni weaves strands of Yiddish and Middle Eastern literature, historical fiction and magical fable, in a wondrously inventive tale that is mesmerizing and unforgettable.

Helene Wecker grew up in Libertyville, Illinois, a tiny town north of Chicago, and graduated from Carleton College in Minnesota with a bachelor's degree in English. She worked in marketing and communications in Minneapolis and Seattle after graduation before deciding she wanted to create something more than a press release. In order to obtain a master's degree in fiction writing at Columbia University, she relocated to New York. She now lives with her spouse and daughter near San Francisco.