The Hidden Palace: A Novel of the Golem and the Jinni

It’s been eight years since Helene Wecker’s The Golem and the Jinni, a wondrous, beautiful work of fiction that took a simple concept – in New York City near the beginning of the 20th century, a golem comes to live among humans in the Jewish quarter, while a jinni freed from centuries of captivity hides in the Syrian neighborhood – and turned it into something special: a tale about immigrants, about culture wars, about unlikely friends, about Jewish mysticism, about revenge and love and friendship and kindness and much more. It’s something truly special to me, finding something wonderful in the pairing of a creature who is made to serve and one who never wants to serve again, and exploring that both in terms fantastical and deeply grounded. In short, it’s basically a perfect book, one that works excellently on its own…but then, Wecker announced that she had a sequel coming…and who was I to turn down a return trip to this amazing world?

The Hidden Palace picks up almost immediately after the end of the first novel (indeed, if you, like me, haven’t read it since its original release, I’d recommend a revisiting before you start this one – while Wecker adds some recapping, this definitely feels like it’s intended almost as a direct follow-up, and works better when all of that is fresh in your mind), as the jinni Ahmad returns home from his travels and the golem Chava awaits him back home. But as the book opens, a rabbi in the neighborhood stumbles across the notes left behind by Chava’s former “keeper,” and realizes what they might mean; simultaneously, back in Ahmad’s homeland, a female jinni hears about the legend of the traveling jinni bound by iron who traveled across oceans, and decides to make her way towards him.

If that sounds like the plot here is far more complicated than its predecessor, that’s undeniably true – and I haven’t even touched on a variety of other storylines here, including a young boy’s memories of the climax of the previous book, a standoffish orphan girl with a secret, Ahmad’s prickly relationship with his business partner, Chava’s growing realizations about her own nature and how it will affect her life – oh, and did I mention a slew of historical events, from the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire to the sinking of the Titanic? Yeah, there’s a lot going on in The Hidden Palace, and to some degree, it’s to the book’s detriment; while The Golem and the Jinni was remarkably tight and focused despite all of its scope (and even tighter than it first looked, given the final revelations), The Hidden Palace struggles a bit more to keep itself together, sometimes forcing its threads together a little inelegantly, or using history in a way that sometimes feels less organic and more like the quick cultural tourism of Forrest Gump. (This goes less for the fire and more for the sinking ship, for what it’s worth.)

Nonetheless, the plot never gets so dense that Wecker loses focus on her characters – and given how many she’s juggling, that’s incredibly impressive. Wecker is dealing with a wide swath of people and locations, charting them over a much longer period of time than the first book (nearly 15 years), and the way she brings them all to life is never less than wondrous – humane, complex, rich, and detailed. It’s easy to lose yourself in the early 20th century New York that Wecker brings to life here – you can almost smell the scents from Chava’s Jewish bakery, or feel the heat from Ahmad’s furnace as he works on his intricate arts.

Which brings us back to our golem and our jinni. If the first novel used them as a way of exploring the lives of American immigrants of the time, The Hidden Palace expands on that, watching as both go from outsiders looking i to individuals who want so much more from their lives. Chava finds herself more and more aware of how women are treated in the society. Ahmad sees the flaws in the American experiment and struggles to reconcile his independence with a need for community. What began as an exploration of newcomers to the country becomes a quest for an identity that’s more than just their ethnicity and origins. But even with all of that heavy symbolic lifting to do, Chava and Ahmad work as people – as characters we genuinely care about. As they evolve, as they are emotionally wounded, as they find friendships or love or satisfaction or fear, it’s impossible not to become invested in what happens next. What’s more, Wecker manages the complicated feat of making them believable characters not in spite of their natures, but because of them – while Chava and Ahmad are always understandable, it’s also always evident how their natures have shaped them and affected how they’ve turned out.

The Hidden Palace isn’t quite as good as The Golem and the Jinni – it’s bigger, more sprawling, and more ambitious, and that sometimes means it’s lacking some of the focus and purity that the original could bring together. But with that being said, it’s still a more than worthy sequel to the book, delivering us back into that incredible world and allowing ourselves to be lost in it, catching up with these characters and seeing how their lives evolved after the book ended. And even when you think you’ve seen what Wecker can do, she delivers something new – an oddly beautiful meeting between two kindred spirits in a basement, the careful rekindling of an old friendship, the pain of a damaged community. If you loved The Golem and the Jinni – and you did, right? – The Hidden Palace is a no-brainer. If it’s bigger and lumpier, well, it’s still no less full of magic, wonder, and richness to be found.

This was one of those book that you just can’t put down, yet don’t want to read too quickly lest it be over. The book does an excellent job of easing you back into the world even if your memory of the details in The Golem and the Jinni are a hazy as mine were. It was an absolute delight to revisit this world; everything feels so well fleshed out and the the characters and their motivations feel like real people. Were it not for the fantastical bits you might imagine this was a true story.

It was wonderful to get to spend time with the Golem and the Jinni again, and to see how their relationship evolved. I also really enjoyed the new point of view characters that were introduced. Toby’s mission to unravel the mysteries in his life, and Kreindel’s struggles frequently kept me up reading later than I intended. Having recently been struggling with a physical injury myself; I found myself particularly identifying with the struggles that Sophia deals with, and her determination inspiring. Several points in the book were so moving that I had to pause and wipe away the tears.

Overall a fantastic followup to The Golem and the Jinni, I LOVED this book and I can’t wait to see what the author writes next!

Helene Wecker’s The Golem and the Jinni is one of my favorite books. Set in 1899 New York City, the story serves up a unique blend of history and fantasy that focuses on the small-scale (yet often still high-stakes) rhythms of daily life. Wecker’s protagonists—the pair of magical beings featured in the novel’s title—aren’t human, but they’re forced to masquerade as immigrants, two more displaced visitors struggling with how to define and adapt their identities in a new land.

The sequel, The Hidden Palace, picks up soon after its predecessor left off. Having defeated the corrupt kabbalist Yehudah Schaalman (the closest thing the first book had to a villain), Chava, the golem, and Ahmad, the jinni, resume the new roles they’ve chosen for themselves. Chava continues working as a baker, Ahmad as a tinsmith. But where the previous entry in the series took place over the course of a year or so, The Hidden Palace spans a decade and a half. For a while, the mythical lovers’ new home seems to change faster than they do. New York alters and grows, “reveling in its constant newness, its own unending cycle of reinvention. Automobiles began to dot the streets … Telephones appeared, fascinating the Jinni, who couldn’t believe such a thing was possible without sorcery.”

The couple fights constantly, though, bickering in all-too-human fashion. The causes range from the duo’s fundamental differences—Chava is a construct of clay, Ahmad a creature of flame—to the constant strain of hiding and suppressing their true natures, to the grief brought on by losing some of the mortals who have become close to them. Eventually, the relationship ruptures, and Chava and Ahmad separate.

I didn’t love this part of the story. The romantic strife felt ordinary in the wrong way, even when it focused on the magical undercurrents. And the fantasy seemed a bit too familiar as well: instead of exploring other aspects of Jewish and Arabic mythology (a leviathan? A behemoth? A roc?), Wecker gives us new golems and jinnis to serve as rivals and mirrors.

But I’m glad she doubled down on the history. Because she does a superb job with it.

The Golem and the Jinni provided a nuanced view of the Jewish and Syrian communities in New York City. The Hidden Palace furthers this trend. The cultures we glimpse are richly textured, both multi-faceted and riven with internal conflicts. (For example, early on two minor Jewish characters face “each other balefully over the threshold” of a door, “each staring in clear distaste at the top of the other’s head: the one garbed in Orthodox hat and side-curls, and the other, in the Reform manner, as bare as a Gentile’s.”)

The book’s longer timeframe also allows Wecker to integrate notable events. Some are lesser-known, like the heatwave of 1901 that “fell upon the city like a hammer. Horses dropped dead in the streets. Ambulances raced from building to building, collecting the stricken. The city parks became haphazard dormitories as all searched for somewhere cool enough to sleep.” Famous tragedies like the sinking of the Titanic also intrude, as does World War I (seen here from a Jewish and Syrian perspective, as relatives in New York worry about their families across the ocean whose crops are being commandeered by soldiers).

Most of all, I appreciated the renewed look at the immigrant experience.

Chava and Ahmad didn’t choose to come to America—Chava was made for and brought by a master who later died; Ahmad was imprisoned in a flask that ended up in Little Syria (a Manhattan neighborhood) by chance. And when they arrive, they have no choice but to assimilate. The question is how much. What aspects of their previous personas can and should they retain? How much should they adjust to fit in? Where can they contribute?

The analogy isn’t perfect; the Golem and the Jinni aren’t just Americanizing—they’re anthropomorphizing too, becoming increasingly human whether they like it or not. But they grow to love the new cultures they’re exposed to, the architecture and idioms they encounter. And they help shape them.

It’s a worthy theme to return to.

So while The Hidden Palace doesn’t feel as fresh as the first entry in the series, and relies on too many chance encounters to move the plot, I still enjoyed myself. Wecker has established a strong template to work from. If she wants to use it to craft more stories in this mold, I’ll be happy to read them.

The Golem and the Jinni was one of the most amazing books I’ve ever had the pleasure to read. I didn’t want it to end, so I was thrilled when this second volume in the saga was published. I wish I could say I loved it as much, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case. The story lost it’s way about a third of the way through the book. There were too many threads, too many characters, to pull together into a cohesive whole. Part of what made the first book so wonderful was the way the author drew you into the world of the Lower East Side at the turn of that last century. But this book failed on the historical level to give voice to a slew of characters and events that added nothing to the real heart of this ongoing saga. I hope the next volume returns to the original flavor of the story and the real stars of it - the golem and the jinni.

I see that there are diverse opinions among reviewers. Some are enthusiastic, and some are disappointed. Although I am one of the former, I think I understand the disappointment. If you were expecting a second book very like the first, The Hidden Palace is not that.

You will naturally expect The Hidden Palace to be centered on the same characters as The Golem and the Jinni, but it isn't really. It is true that the main characters are the Golem whom we knew as Chava and the Jinni, whom we knew as Ahmad. Several other characters from The Golem and the Jinni reappear here. However, Chava and Ahmad become different characters here. This happens in a natural and believable way. One of the paradoxes of The Golem and the Jinni was how human its non-human main characters were. They still are, and like real humans, they change.

Because she moved through the world as an adult, it was easy to forget that Chava was just a baby. She came to life in 1899. The Hidden Palace begins in 1900. In this book, Chava grows up. Inevitably, grown-up Chava is different from baby Chava. For Ahmad the story is a little different. Ahmad is hundreds of years old. However, he was trapped in human form only recently in his experience. (The centuries he spent trapped in a bottle don't count, since he didn't really experience them.) Thus, despite his age, Ahmad is living very differently in a very different world than that in which he spent most of his life. Also, events I can't describe because they would be spoilers precipitate further changes in Ahmad.

The structure of the story is also very different. In The Golem and the Jinni I was impressed by the slow and careful way in which Helene Wecker built her world, and by the flurry of exciting event at the end. The Hidden Palace is more of a saga. It plays out over the course of 15 years full of historical events.

One thing doesn't change. I remarked in my review of The Golem and the Jinni that it was, unexpectedly, a historical novel of late 19th century New York City, with some interludes in the Middle East. The Hidden Palace is a historical novel of early 20th-century New York City, with some interludes in the Middle East. Wecker obviously knows Manhattan well (she earned an MFA degree at Columbia University). I would not necessarily says she "loves" New York, but her affection for the city is unmistakable.

Loved it. Couldn't put it down.10 stars.will be on the lookout for this author. Hopefully with a part 3. Really great

At last I found another great book . It has all the ingredients: great plot, well defined and relatable characters, not predictable or romance novelly, its a period piece, its a fantasy (or not, depending on your beliefs), and I didn’t want it to end. Makes me want to re-read The Golem and the Jinni. A treasure!

WOW is all I can say! I’ve been waiting for so long for this sequel to The Golem and The Jinni (along with many other readers) and it’s finally here. Thanks to the Jewish Book Council, I got a preview of the beginning of the book, but read the whole thing as soon as it was published. And it did not disappoint. There is, naturally, further development of the two main characters (Chava, the golem, and Ahmad, the jinni) along with some other returning favorites such as Anna, Arbeely, Maryam and Sophia. There are also some new intriguing characters, Toby and Kreindel, along with a couple of surprises that I wish the publisher didn’t give away in its description of the book.

For anyone who hasn’t read the first book, the author, Helene Wecker, does a good job of bringing people up to speed on the background, but of course, as with most series/sequels, you get a richer experience if you’ve read the first book. The setting is early 20th century New York City and what was then part of the Ottoman Empire but is generally referred to now as Syria. Urban fantasy is what I might call these books, with our not-humans (Jewish-based legend of the golem and Arab-based legend of the jinni) living among ordinary citizens. Wecker has really done her research and the book is filled with folklore and wonderful descriptions of early 20th century NYC, including the construction of the still-mourned Penn Station, and several historical events that impact the plot. There are a lot of different threads in this book, but Wecker brings it all together beautifully.

A must-read, in my opinion.

For me, this novel was obviously a sequel, and as I neared the ending, it seemed more and more likely that it would be the middle book of a trilogy. I strongly advise folks to read “The Golem and the Jinni” first, and if you, like me, read it back in 2013 when it first came out, check out the chapter-by-chapter summary on The Bibliofile website.

It took so long for author Helene Wecker to get this novel out that I feared it would suffer from second-book-syndrome. True, I didn't find it as excellent as the first, but I still enjoyed it. The early chapters dragged, especially those focused on Sophia's travels. Things only got interesting once she encountered the jinniyeh. I appreciated how Chava dealt with the problem that never aging meant she'd have to keep moving to a new community and adopting a new identity. It was a good way to introduce her to new characters, especially Kreindel, and to show us life in a NYC Jewish orphanage. Wecker did a good job of working in historical details that would affect her characters, like the Shirtwaist Fire, building Penn Station, sinking of the Titanic and Germany torpedoing the Lusitania. I wasn't surprised that Chava and Ahmad had a falling out; it's the predictable middle act of a romance plot. But I was disappointed that they just went on with their lives and weren't more unhappy about it. They are the "title" characters after all. I think my favorite new character was Yossele, Kreindel's golem. The way his intellectual and emotional development was shown was wonderful, and I wished he'd had a larger role than that of a short-lived tragic hero. I really liked Toby too, even though his recurrent dreams seemed to point too obviously to a future novel.

In summary, I definitely recommend this novel to fans of the first one, and I fervently hope I don't have to wait 8 years for the next installment.

I know this book was a long time in the making but I don't think the editor got it right. Too many confusing characters and not enough focus on the golem and the jinni. I agree with other reviewers who said there also was not the historical flavor of living in New York during that time period that added so much to the first book. Hopefully, this is just a bit of a sophomore slump as I have seen in so many writers’ second novels over the years.