James Nicoll Reviews

2013’s Nebula nominee¹ The Golem and the Jinni is the first volume in Helene Wecker’s Golem and the Jinni series.

1899: America’s New York City is home to legions of immigrants from across the world. These newcomers are of every sort one could imagine, but Chava and Ahmad are perhaps the oddest.

Polish entrepreneur Rotfeld had some money left after running the family business into the ground. He spent a small fraction buying passage from Danzig to New York. Rotfeld spent a much larger fraction paying disgraced Rabbi Schaalman to create for Rotfeld a golem in the shape of a woman, to serve Rotfeld in America.

Rotfeld was as unlucky as he was foolish. He concealed his appendicitis until pain made it impossible. Perhaps the ship’s doctor could have saved Rotfeld had he sought help earlier. As it is, Rotfeld suffered a painful death. He never set foot in New York.

As far as the crew of the ship is concerned, the golem is a simply a woman with no ticket, not cargo that spent most of the trip in a crate. Confronted as a stowaway, the golem simply steps off the boat and walks until she reaches the shore.

Rabbi Avram Meyer knows a golem when he sees one. Prudence suggests that he should destroy the masterless golem before it runs amok. Instead, Meyer takes in the golem, names her Chava, and helps her learn to live unnoticed among the humans of New York.

Metalsmith Boutros Arbeely is astonished when the copper flask on which he is working suddenly releases a jinni. A long-ago wizard confined the jinni to the flask, but not before he bound the jinni in human form with an iron cuff. The cuff is beyond Arbeely’s ability to remove. At least for the moment, the jinni is stuck in human form.

The jinni possesses some of its former power, including the ability to generate heat. He demonstrates a talent for metal work. Reluctantly adopting the human name Ahmad, the jinni works for Arbeely.

Chava and Ahmad possess senses beyond the mundane. When by chance their paths cross, each recognizes the other as something other than human. The golem is a creature of clay and the jinni a creature of smokeless flame, but they bond over their differences from human.

Chave and Ahmad have something else in common. Unbeknownst to either, they share an enemy. That enemy is even now making his way to New York City.

~oOo~

As strange as it may seem today, in 1900 the US had a functioning government, a thriving economy, and accepted immigrants, if not charitably, then at least voraciously. About one in seven people living in the US were foreign born. This varied considerably by region, as newcomers gravitated to places where jobs and homes could more easily be found, from lows like North Carolina’s 0.2% to Hawaii’s nearly 60%.

New York’s 26.1% might not sound impressive, but that was more than one in four of a very large population. Thus, New York was home to almost two million foreign-born persons. Another way to look at it is that about a fifth of all the foreign-born persons in the USA lived in New York. Which is to say, if a jinni and a golem emigrated to the US, New York is a logical place for them to end up.

The fact that the jinni and the golem managed to cross paths so quickly may suggest to some a high density of supernatural creatures living in New York. Oddly, American census data does not address this.

Younger readers may not have encountered the immigrant-story genre, but just as the US once posed fewer barriers to entry for immigrants, US authors also wrote about immigrants. There was at one time a thriving genre of stories about immigrants to America, I Remember Mama and The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N being but two examples. The Golem and the Jinni follows the conventions of this forgotten genre, painting a vivid image of the complex quilt-work of foreign-born communities and the sometimes-strained relations between them. The struggles of Chava and Ahmad to find their niches in New York would be familiar to anyone well read in the genre.

Some readers may be horrified when they learn more about the book. ​“Is this literature? Have I forked over my $25.00 only to be subjected to a well-crafted tale that will in some way better me? Is this broccoli?” Inadvertently reading a fantasy that turns out to be literature is a risk we all take; this is why timorous readers would be well advised to join my Patreon, so that helpful reviews like this continue to be written.

While the author does indulge in all the vices of literature—enthralling prose, intricate characterization, a memorable portrait of the New York of the previous millennium — and there is some risk of setting the novel down having benefited from reading it, there is also a thrilling adventure story here about two very non-human but sympathetic beings and their struggle with the villain of the tale. One could read this as a thoughtful work full of details to ponder. However, one can also enjoy the novel on a very shallow level, as a thrilling tale. Which is to say, hand the author your twenty-five bucks. No matter how you tackle fiction, there is probably something in this book for you.

There’s just one detail that baffles me. Chava and Ahmad’s story seems to be complete. Despite this, there is a sequel, The Hidden Palace. What could it be about, I wonder? I suppose I will have to find out…

The Golem and the Jinni is available here (Amazon US), here (Amazon Canada), here (Amazon UK), here (Apple Books), here (Barnes & Noble), here (Chapters-Indigo), and here (Words Worth Books).

1: To quote the author bio, The Golem and the Jinni won the Mythopoeic Award for Adult Literature, the VCU Cabell Award for First Novel, and the Harold U. Ribalow Prize; it was nominated for a Nebula Award and a World Fantasy Award.