VIRTUAL Event with Helene Wecker, Author of The Golem and the Jinni

7:00 PM - 8:00 PM

Event Details

Join us for a program with Helene Wecker, author of the acclaimed novel The Golem and the Jinni and now its long-awaited sequel, The Hidden Palace. Ms. Wecker will be in conversation with fantasy writer Kat Howard.

REGISTER HERE FOR THIS EVENT, which is cosponsored with the Book Stall and the public libraries of Evanston, Highland Park, Mount Prospect, Wilmette, and Winnetka.

About the book: A blend of romance, Mary-Shelley-esque horror, and folklore...Wecker skillfully combines the storylines of Chava the Golem and Ahmad the Jinni and numerous other players, good and evil, in an enchanting tale that pleases on every page." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Signed copies of The Hidden Palace are available from the Book Stall. 

About the Book: "A blend of romance, Mary Shelley-esque horror, and folklore.... Wecker skillfully combines the storylines of Chava the Golem and Ahmad the Jinni and numerous other players, good and evil, in an enchanting tale that pleases on every page." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Chava is a golem, a woman made of clay, who can hear the thoughts and longings of those around her and feels compelled by her nature to help them. Ahmad is a jinni, a restless creature of fire, once free to roam the desert but now imprisoned in the shape of a man. Fearing they'll be exposed as monsters, these magical beings hide their true selves and try to pass as human--just two more immigrants in the bustling world of 1900s Manhattan. Brought together under calamitous circumstances, their lives are now entwined--but they're not yet certain of what they mean to each other.

Both Chava and Ahmad have changed the lives of the people around them. Park Avenue heiress Sophia Winston, whose brief encounter with Ahmad left her with a strange illness that makes her shiver with cold, travels to the Middle East to seek a cure. There she meets Dima, a tempestuous female jinni who's been banished from her tribe. Back in New York, in a tenement on the Lower East Side, a little girl named Kreindel helps her rabbi father build a golem they name Yossele--not knowing that she's about to be sent to an orphanage uptown, where the hulking Yossele will become her only friend and protector.

Spanning the tumultuous years from the turn of the twentieth century to the beginning of World War I, The Hidden Palace follows these lives and others as they collide and interleave. Can Chava and Ahmad find their places in the human world while remaining true to each other? Or will their opposing natures and desires eventually tear them apart--especially once they encounter, thrillingly, other beings like themselves?

About the Author:  A Midwest native, Helene Wecker holds a B.A. in English from Carleton College and an M.F.A. in Fiction Writing from Columbia University. Her work has appeared in literary journals such as Joyland and Catamaran, as well as in the fantasy anthology The Djnn Falls in Love and Other Stories. She lives in the San Francisco Bay area with her husband and children.  

About Kat Howard: Her short fiction has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award, anthologized in best of and annual best of collections, and performed on NPR. She is the author of the critically acclaimed Roses and Rot and the Alex Award-winning An Unkindness of Magicians. She is also the writer of the Books of Magic series, set in the Sandman Universe. She lives in New Hampshire, and you can find her on twitter at @KatWithSword.

Presented in partnership with The Book Stall, Evanston Public Library, Highland Park Public Library, and Mount Prospect Public Library.

Event Type(s): Author Event
Age Group(s): Adult