The first book I read by Aden Polydoros, The City Beautiful, was all it took to put him on my auto-buy list. His writing was one of the few times that I’ve ever really seen my own culture and way of life so clearly represented in a book, and that wasn’t even to mention how the story and writing blew me away. But enough about TCB, lets get to this newer book.
It isn’t hard to see how a golem would have been helpful to have around during the Holocaust. And it’s through the brilliant lens of Polydoros that this genre-bridging story comes to life. While I classify it as horror, it also includes strong historical fiction and fantasy elements, and even could be classified as magical realism.
Ezra, a grieving father, creates a golem out of river mud, elements of his deceased daughter Chaya, all of his rage, and an old and unholy form of magic known as kishuf. Vera awakens and feels that rage, but she feels more that wasn’t expected—Chaya’s memories and emotions. And while I hated the way that Ezra behaves towards Vera, I can understand a little bit about it too. Ezra struggles throughout the book with how he views Vera. He made her for a purpose, and wants to have her fulfill that purpose, but at the same time, he’s disgusted at how he profaned the long history of Jewish teachings.
The majority of the book is an exploration of what it means to be human, what happens if we deviate from our purpose in life, and if it is even possible to decide our own path. All of this is set against the backdrop of World War II in Lithuania, where Jews are herded into a ghetto and fighting for their lives against both Nazis and Lithuanians who are free to express their antisemitism. As Vera is working to fulfill her purpose, she starts to work with some partisans and encounters Akiva, the boy from Chaya’s memories.
I really enjoyed how beautifully this story was done, from start to finish. Polydoros has a wonderful, lyrical writing style that manages to transport his readers into a story and grips them from start to finish. And I especially loved that this was a bit different from the usual Holocaust story in that it not only featured partisans fighting back against and killing Nazis (which were some of my favorite scenes, btw), but it included characters struggling with their faith in the wake of the events they are living in, and incorporated fantasy in a way that made a mythological being feel as real as a person. And while it mostly focused on a deep internal journey that Vera was going through, the action scenes were incredible, and totally worth the wait to get to that last chapter.
It isn’t hard to see how a golem would have been helpful to have around during the Holocaust. And it’s through the brilliant lens of Polydoros that this genre-bridging story comes to life. While I classify it as horror, it also includes strong historical fiction and fantasy elements, and even could be classified as magical realism.
Ezra, a grieving father, creates a golem out of river mud, elements of his deceased daughter Chaya, all of his rage, and an old and unholy form of magic known as kishuf. Vera awakens and feels that rage, but she feels more that wasn’t expected—Chaya’s memories and emotions. And while I hated the way that Ezra behaves towards Vera, I can understand a little bit about it too. Ezra struggles throughout the book with how he views Vera. He made her for a purpose, and wants to have her fulfill that purpose, but at the same time, he’s disgusted at how he profaned the long history of Jewish teachings.
The majority of the book is an exploration of what it means to be human, what happens if we deviate from our purpose in life, and if it is even possible to decide our own path. All of this is set against the backdrop of World War II in Lithuania, where Jews are herded into a ghetto and fighting for their lives against both Nazis and Lithuanians who are free to express their antisemitism. As Vera is working to fulfill her purpose, she starts to work with some partisans and encounters Akiva, the boy from Chaya’s memories.
I really enjoyed how beautifully this story was done, from start to finish. Polydoros has a wonderful, lyrical writing style that manages to transport his readers into a story and grips them from start to finish. And I especially loved that this was a bit different from the usual Holocaust story in that it not only featured partisans fighting back against and killing Nazis (which were some of my favorite scenes, btw), but it included characters struggling with their faith in the wake of the events they are living in, and incorporated fantasy in a way that made a mythological being feel as real as a person. And while it mostly focused on a deep internal journey that Vera was going through, the action scenes were incredible, and totally worth the wait to get to that last chapter.