One of the perks of membership in the Historical Novel Society is their magazine that consists mainly of book reviews arranged by century. There’s usually not much for Late Antiquity [1st-5th century], but I eagerly check anyway. Imagine my astonishment when I saw the review of “Holy Smoke” by Frederick Ramsay, the second of his “Jerusalem Mysteries,” which takes place in 1st century Roman Palestina and stars as master detective – Rabban Gamliel, head of the Sanhedrin.
Ancient Talmudic scholar solves murder mysteries! How could I pass up such a hero, especially when the novel was well reviewed and available in my local library? Since this was Book II, I checked out Book I, The Eighth Veil. I admit to some trepidation after reading Ramsay’s author bio and learning that he is a retired Episcopal priest. But I figured that if this were a thinly disguised effort to promote Christianity, I would immediately stop reading and post a scathing review online.
But to my surprise, Jesus, while mentioned in passing as an itinerant rabbi in the North, is neither a character nor an important figure. Ramsay paints a fairly accurate picture of 1st century Judaism and the difficulties Jerusalem Jews faced living under King Herod and Pontius Pilate. Gamliel is the voice of Rabbinic Judaism, which puts him in some conflict with the High Priest, but all this is in the background of the murder mystery that first and foremost shows how Gamliel, in classic reluctant detective mode, goes about discovering the truth so he can get back to his studies.
I’ve been a murder mystery fan for as long as I can remember, devouring Agatha Christie, PD James, Ellis Peters, Dorothy Sayers, Arthur Conan Doyle, etc. After reading both of Ramsay’s “Jerusalem Mysteries,” I’m pleased to discover a novelist who does a pretty good job of combining this genre with my current passion, history of rabbis in Late Antiquity. Who knew?
When I speak about how I became a historical novelist, I almost always mention that while I had no prior writing experience [i.e. joined no writing groups, kept no journals, took no creative writing classes], I was a prodigious reader of fiction. While I tend to think that I was more into SciFi, fantasy and detective novels than historicals, when I recall my childhood favorites, most of them were all HF. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Little Women, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Little House on the Prairie, to name a few that I still love.
But it was the "All-of-a-Kind Family" series by Sydney Taylor that was the inspiration for my own "Rashi's Daughters" trilogy. Written in the 1950’s, these were five novels about a pre-WW I, Lower Eastside NY, Jewish family with lots of daughters. The plots were minimal; the important parts for me were learning about the family’s traditions, holidays, life cycle ceremonies, and day-to-day life in those "olden days." That’s what I wanted to do for Rashi’s family, albeit for an adult audience. Thus my characters attended funerals and observed Tisha B’Av in addition to all the happy celebrations that were the only kind that the All-of-a-Kind Family experienced.
I am happy to report that Sydney Taylor’s novels are still in print. Speaking of children’s HF, I did adapt Rashi's Daughters, Book I: Joheved into Rashi's Daughter, Secret Scholar for a YA audience and that book too is still in print
I was recently alerted by fans that the Jewniverse website, associated with MyJewishLearning, had an odd article about Rashi’s Daugthers. Notice the upper case D, which would suggest that they’re talking about my historical novels, not merely the daughters of Rashi.
There are several odd things here. First is that, while finally mentioning my books in the last paragraph, my name never appears. Second, they are publicizing a book that has been out since 2005; why the sudden interest nine years after publication? But the weirdest thing is the website’s picture of three medievalish women and a man outdoors surrounded by some sort of plants. I have no idea where/how they got this, but it's clearly not Rashi and his daughters, even though one woman appears to be blowing a shofar. This is a hunting scene with the man shooting an arrow at a deer, not working a vineyard. When I posted a comment about the picture, they replied that it was nice to hear from me, and that the illustration from a period manuscript, not Rashi’s daughters.
Still, even weird publicity is good publicity. And I did get my name mentioned by commenting.