Between the pages

Brooks' historical novel tells tales of the lives linked to ancient book

By Jenny Shank , Special to the Rocky

Published December 28, 2007 at 12:05 a.m.

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Photo by Randi Baird ©

Success follows Geraldine Brooks, regardless of her style of writing.

Geraldine Brooks has enjoyed three successful phases of her writing career: first working as a foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal in Bosnia and other war zones, then writing nonfiction books, including 1994's acclaimed Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women, and most recently trying her hand at historical fiction.

She hasn't done so shabbily at it: She won the Pulitzer Prize for her most recent novel, March, an imagining of the life of Louisa May Alcott's father.

Brooks' resume would seem to make her uniquely qualified to tackle the complex subject matter of her new novel, People of the Book. The tale traces the history of one coveted tome, a Jewish prayer book traditionally used during the Passover seder, through time as it travels through war-torn Europe of many eras and influences the lives of the people who create or encounter it.

In April 1996, rare-book conservator Hanna Heath flies into Sarajevo to inspect and repair the Sarajevo Haggadah, which has just turned up after being lost during the war. "The Sarajevo Haggadah, created in medieval Spain," Brooks writes, "was a famous rarity, a lavishly illuminated Hebrew manuscript made at a time when Jewish belief was firmly against illustrations of any kind." In the afterword, Brooks notes that the novel is based on the true story of this Haggadah, though she has fictionalized her account, imagining the book's history.

In 1996, Sarajevo is still smoldering from its recent war: "half the houses weren't there anymore. They were just jagged bits of masonry, sticking up in ragged rows like rotting teeth." A Muslim librarian saved the Haggadah during the worst of the fighting, which destroyed Sarajevo's library, and now the city's officials want to display the book to boost the country's morale.

Hanna is only 30, but as she says, "I don't go in for false modesty: I'm great at what I do." She was chosen to complete this important work in part because her country of origin, Australia, offends none of the parties involved in hiring her.

Despite her skill at her profession, Hanna's egotistical, world-renowned neurosurgeon mother belittles it, and they clash frequently. Hanna is no less acerbic than her mother and is fiercely committed to her own independence.

While completing the work, Hanna has a fling with a man named Ozren, the librarian who saved the Haggadah from the bombing. During the war, Ozren's wife was killed and his child brain-injured from sniper fire. When Ozren invites Hanna to visit his unresponsive son in the hospital, she only reluctantly agrees.

During her inspection of the Haggadah, Hanna finds a fragment of an insect's wing, wine stains, salt and a hair, which she collects to consult with her colleagues who are experts in these subjects before carefully rebinding the book.

These objects serve as clues that launch the narrative into historical episodes from the Haggadah's past, beginning with the most recent times - the Haggadah's narrow escape from burning during World War II with the help of another Muslim scholar - and extending back to the most ancient, the creation of the Haggadah's illuminations by an artist in medieval Seville.

These historical sections are richly detailed, enthralling accounts and could almost stand alone as short stories. The chapters, all in third-person, most depicting people trying to survive times of great suffering, contrast markedly with the punchy first-person narration of the Hanna chapters.

Although People of the Book contains scads of beautiful writing, the overall work is uneven. Sometimes the mystery-thriller aspects of the novel - such as globally dispersed expert analysts sending Hanna breathless messages about the incredible facts they've discovered about this bit of parchment or that bit of hair - sit uneasily alongside the finely crafted historical episodes. Brooks' effort to create an entertaining narrative in which to embed the historical vignettes is admirable, but she handles the Da Vinci Code-like thriller moments as if splicing Masterpiece Theater with CSI.

Additionally, a few of the plot points don't seem believable: Is it possible for a hair from the brush of the original painter of the illuminations to have been preserved throughout the book's travels and yet overlooked by all previous expert examiners of the Haggadah? Theoretically, sure, but when so many coincidences add up - including a similarly preserved insect wing and a suddenly revealed missing genius father whose heritage links Hanna culturally to the Haggadah - it strains the readers' suspension of disbelief.

Still, People of the Book is an ambitious effort filled with many fascinating historical details, characters and stories, and it's capable of casting a spell for many pages at a time.

Jenny Shank's fiction has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review and other journals. She writes about books for New West.net and lives in Boulder.

People of the Book

* By Geraldine Brooks. Viking, 384 pages, $25.95.

* Grade: B

All in the family

Brooks is part of a two-Pulitzer family. She's married to author Tony Horwitz, who won a Pulitzer in 1995 for a series of articles he wrote for The Wall Street Journal. Horwitz has written three nonfiction books: Confederates in the Attic, Baghdad Without a Map and One for the Road.

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