Check out our interview with Helene Wecker, the author of "The Gates of Midnight."
What was your inspiration behind your most recent book?
The Gates of Midnight is the third and final volume in the Golem and the Jinni trilogy, which was inspired by the immigration experiences of my own two families, the Jewish-American one I was born into and the Arab-American one I married into -- but with an added fantastical twist! The series follows Chava, a female golem, and Ahmad, a male jinni, as they arrive in Manhattan at the turn of the 20th century and try to find their places in the human world. In The Gates of Midnight, it's 1930, and Chava and Ahmad are living separate lives: Chava in a house in Brooklyn where she's increasingly isolated from the world, and Ahmad in Chicago, where he's struggling to advance as an architect. After thirty years they've survived quite a few challenges -- but now they have to face a villain who they thought was long defeated and, in the process, decide what they truly owe to themselves and each other.
What does Reading Rainbow mean to you?
For me, Reading Rainbow means reading with a humanist purpose and intention. We tend to silo ourselves into groups by instinct, and it's far too easy to interact only with those who share the same basic experiences as ourselves. Reading is a great way to broaden that mindset and place my life in the context of the greater world, whether that means reading books by diverse authors or books that shine a light on something -- a country, a time in history, a movement, what have you -- that I haven't really considered yet.
Why do you feel representation of a variety of people is so important when it comes to writing books?
People, especially kids, need to know that they're not alone. They need to see themselves reflected in the world so they can know that their experience isn't some giant cosmic anomaly, even if it feels that way that sometimes. I see this more and more with the LGTBQ+ teens in my own kids' generation, who devour queer romantasy and Heartstoppers and whatever else they can get their hands on. Those teens can now use those books to find their own tribe of fellow readers, in the same way that my nerd friends and I bonded over Lord of the Rings and Doctor Who and Dragonlance.
Tell us a little more about the book and why you decided to write it.
After finishing The Hidden Palace, the second book in the series, it became pretty clear that the two books needed a third to complete the story. And since The Golem and the Jinni was about the shock of arrival in a new country, and The Hidden Palace explored the long, slow process of assimilation, I realized that The Gates of Midnight had to be about the legacy of immigration: its effect on the following generations, and how they grapple with all sorts of inherited memories and expectations. So I brought back a number of characters who we'd seen as children in the first two books, all of them from immigrant families. Each of them has a different relationship with the legacies that were handed down to them, and all of them have been affected by Chava and Ahmad -- whether they were aware of it or not!
What can fans expect from your book?
My books tend to feature a large cast of characters with multiple plot threads and points of view, and The Gates of Midnight is no exception! There's more magic and mysticism in this book than in the previous two, but also a plenty of real-world, street-level New York scenery, including a peek into the gangster underworld of the Prohibition era. If you were a fan of Kreindel Altschul in The Hidden Palace, with her stubborn attitude and conflicted heart, you'll be happy to hear that she's now in her early thirties and just as defiant as ever. And if you remember young Matthew Mounsef from The Golem and the Jinni, Ahmad's silent apprentice at the tinshop, then you'll be very interested in what he's been up to over the last thirty years!
What's up next for you in the bookish world?
I'm not entirely sure yet! I'm working on a novel idea that's more purely fantasy, set in a world where magic and science interact in odd ways. I decided it was time to try my hand at something that doesn't involve a ton of historical research, and I've never invented a society or a magic system from scratch before, so it's going to be a completely new experience!
