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The Weight of Ink
In this historical fiction, 64-year-old historian Helen Watt is asked to look at seventeenth-century letters signed by an unknown rabbi, which were found in the stairwell of an old house in London. These letters have great historical significance and, with the help of American graduate student Aaron Levy, she’s quickly drawn into the mystery of who Aleph was. The letters drive the story forward as academics debate their provenance in the present, while the past storyline introduces us to Ester Velasquez in the 1660s while she works as a scribe for a blind rabbi and a plague looms in the horizon. The characters are well-drawn and demand you feel empathy for them. A great choice for readers who enjoyed A.S. Byatt’s Possession.
About the Book
Publisher’s description:
WINNER OF A NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD
A USA TODAY BESTSELLER
“A gifted writer, astonishingly adept at nuance, narration, and the politics of passion.”—Toni Morrison
Set in London of the 1660s and of the early twenty-first century, The Weight of Ink is the interwoven tale of two women of remarkable intellect: Ester Velasquez, an emigrant from Amsterdam who is permitted to scribe for a blind rabbi, just before the plague hits the city; and Helen Watt, an ailing historian with a love of Jewish history.
When Helen is summoned by a former student to view a cache of newly discovered seventeenth-century Jewish documents, she enlists the help of Aaron Levy, an American graduate student as impatient as he is charming, and embarks on one last project: to determine the identity of the documents’ scribe, the elusive “Aleph.”
Electrifying and ambitious, The Weight of Ink is about women separated by centuries—and the choices and sacrifices they must make in order to reconcile the life of the heart and mind.
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