Questions About The Choice: A Novel of Love, Faith and The Talmud

by Maggie Anton (Goodreads Author)

Reader Q&A

To ask other readers questions about The Choice, please sign up.

Answered Questions (1)

Maggie Anton Fifty-five years ago, I was one of many, many readers who fell in love with Chaim Potok’s brilliant and powerful duet of novels, "The Chosen" and "The…moreFifty-five years ago, I was one of many, many readers who fell in love with Chaim Potok’s brilliant and powerful duet of novels, "The Chosen" and "The Promise." Which is why, when I read the author’s later work, "Davita’s Harp," I couldn’t help but notice that The Chosen’s protagonist appears in the final chapter as Davita’s handsome classmate. Could this have been a Chekov’s Gun? (If, in the first act, there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in a following act it must be fired.) It seemed to me that Potok must have intended a sequel where the two would get together.

Fast-forward to 2013. I was finishing my sixth historical novel, "Enchantress." Potok (of blessed memory) had been gone for ten years, but his characters still rattled around in my head and were refusing to leave. So, with the idea of continuing their story, I reread the first two books. As a feminist, I was astounded at what short shrift the female characters received. The hero’s mother, who dies before he can remember her, is nameless. Nor does he seem to know anything about her or want to. His Hasidic friend’s mother is also nameless, and despite the prominence of Hasidic women running their households in real life, she has a minimal presence.

So I decided to write yet another novel I wanted to read that had not been written, again choosing to focus on overlooked Jewish women. My novel would be wholly transformative, giving names and backstories to these girls and women who are inspired by but do not appear in Potok’s work and, in the process, commenting on and criticizing Jewish women’s unequal and inferior legal status.

There would be love, history, a little baseball, and of course, Talmud. Because for me, an additional frustration with Potok’s first two novels, in which Talmud study is so entwined with the plot, is that no actual Talmud appears—not one line of Gemara. It was this frustration that drove me to include genuine Talmud in my "Rashi’s Daughters" trilogy, so that when Rashi teaches his daughters, the reader learns along with them. Thus I created a plot for my novel in which the hero and heroine’s relationship blossoms as they study Talmud together.
(less)

flag

Unanswered Questions

About Goodreads Q&A

Ask and answer questions about books!

You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.

See Featured Authors Answering Questions

Learn more