Helene’s Comments (group member since Dec 17, 2013)

Helene’s comments from the Ask Helene Wecker - Tuesday, January 14th group.

Elizabeth wrote: "Hello Helene. Thanks for taking the time to answer questions on your wonderful book. I absolutely felt transported to the time and place you describe.

How did you manage to meld together so many ..."

Hi Elizabeth! Thanks so much for recommending the book to your friends and book group. Word of mouth makes such a huge difference.

The melding of cultures in the book took a long time to get right. I had to set up a few rules for myself as I went. For instance, I decided I couldn't use vernacular from one culture if I didn't know the equivalent in the other culture. That's why the Jewish characters don't use Yiddish expressions in the book: I've got next to no familiarity with Arabic sayings, and I decided that if I couldn't say it in Arabic, I wouldn't say it in Yiddish either. That was one of the things that helped to keep the two cultures "balanced" in their representation. (At least, I hope so!) I tried to make sure that all my characters (and their connections to their cultures) were well-developed, so that one set of characters didn't become a side note or a plot device for the other characters. But it took a lot of tinkering and quite a few drafts before I felt like I'd done a decent enough job.

Good morning, everyone! (Well, it's still morning here in California...) I'm thrilled to be here chatting with you. I'll pop in throughout the day to answer your questions about THE GOLEM AND THE JINNI. Can't guarantee that I'll answer every question, but I'll try to answer most of them. Thanks a ton for reading, and let's get started.