Q&A With Helene Wecker 

I’m honored to be doing this Q&A with New York Times Bestselling Author Helene Wecker! Helene is the author of The Golem and the Jinni, & its sequels The Hidden Palace & The Gates of Midnight coming out today on September 15^th! 

Q: Welcome to Book Notions Helene! Would you please give a brief description of each of your books? 

A: Thank you so much for having me! 

The Golem and the Jinni trilogy follow two supernatural immigrants, Chava the golem and Ahmad the jinni, as they arrive in New York City at the turn of the 20th century. In The Golem and the Jinni, Chava and Ahmad each must learn to pass as human in their respective immigrant communities (the Jewish Lower East Side for Chava, and Little Syria in southern Manhattan for Ahmad). One night, their paths happen to cross and they form a tentative friendship – even though they’re temperamental opposites — which is then threatened when a powerful wizard arrives in the city. By the second book, The Hidden Palace, Chava and Ahmad’s friendship has blossomed into something more. But tensions rise between them as each of them struggles to fit in, and their loyalty to each other is further tested when they encounter others like themselves: Yossele, a male golem, and Dima, a female jinni. In the final book, The Gates of Midnight, it’s 1930 and Ahmad now works in Chicago as an architect while Chava tends a house and garden in Brooklyn. They’ve managed to maintain a relationship despite the distance — except that an old, familiar villain is beginning to stir in the shadows. To defeat him, they’ll have to decide once and for all what they mean to each other, and what they owe to themselves. 

Q: How long does it normally take you to write each book? What are messages and emotions you hope readers take away after they finish reading your books?

A: It’s embarrassing to say, but each of these books took five to seven years to write! I write at a terribly slow pace to begin with, and when you add in the time spent on historical research it becomes positively glacial. 

What I hope my readers take away from these books is a sense of the challenges of immigrant life — not just the practical issues of making a living and learning a language, but the internal conflicts as well, the difficult emotional and cultural adjustments. By using fantastical beings for main characters, I get to illustrate those challenges on an exaggerated scale. Chava, for instance, must find a job and an apartment — but she also must learn to eat, even though she doesn’t need food in order to blend in with the people around her. And Ahmad must learn to follow human social rules and etiquette, which he struggles with constantly!

Q: Which scenes were your favorite to create for The Gates Of Midnight? Did you find yourself emotional as you wrote this to be the final book in The Golem and the Jinni trilogy?

A: I loved writing the scenes that take place at the unfinished Empire State Building, where one of my characters works as part of a rivet gang. I watched a lot of archival footage of the Empire State Building under construction and learned about the “steel-walkers” who could stroll along a girder hundreds of feet in the air, without any sort of safety net or line to catch them. I also had a great time with the Chicago scenes in The Gates of Midnight. I grew up in the Chicago area, so writing about the city felt a little like coming home!

I did get a little emotional when I wrote the ending of The Gates of Midnight. I’ve spent over twenty years with these characters, and even though I’m glad to have finished their story, I’m going to miss writing them.

Q: Are you able to give any details about what you are currently writing now?

A: I’m working on a concept for a fantasy novel that’s set in a world that runs on an odd mix of science and religion. I don’t have much yet, but I’m excited to write something where I don’t have to spend half my time on historical research!

Q: Does Hollywood have the rights to The Golem and the Jinni trilogy? Whether they do or not, who is your dream cast for the characters you created? 

A: The first book has been optioned several times, but no one’s gotten it off the ground yet. Between the historical setting and the fantasy effects, it would be expensive to produce, but I’ll be thrilled if someone takes a crack at it someday. As for the dream cast, this is where I divulge that I’m a middle-aged woman who can’t name any celebrity under thirty! If time travel were an option, I’d go back to the year 2000 and ask Rachel Weisz to be Chava. For Ahmad, I’d need to find a leading man who’s already famous in Middle Eastern TV and film, someone who can really smolder. Rabbi Meyer, who rescues Chava at the beginning of The Golem and the Jinni, would be Mandy Patinkin. And for the villain Yehudah Schaalman, definitely Sir Ben Kingsley.

Q: Helene, would you please provide links to your social media accounts so that the readers of the blog and I may follow you and your work?

A: My website is https://helenewecker.com, and you can find me at both Instagram and Threads at @weckerh. Thank you so much, this was a pleasure!