I take a deep breath and let the crisp air of dawn caress my face. I love this time of day, when the city is mostly still, and the birds’ songs are unmolested by vulgar human clatter. It holds promise and it is vibrant, like the spirit of youth.
The Holy Days are past us, the winter months are rolling by, and yet, Achashverosh’s party and its bloody aftermath are the only topics on everyone’s lips.
Rumors abound, though it is impossible to discern the true from the embellished, from the outright fabricated. What remains certain is that the queen is no more. How, and why? I cannot say it concerns me very much. That Achashverosh may be fickle surprises no one; what has the whole Empire befuddled is how trivially the king had his queen, a woman of powerful noble descent, summarily executed. It doesn’t bode well for her successor.
Tamar and I are drawing water at the Ulai river, placing the casks on Tamar’s mule.
Our hands are purple, numbed by the frigid waters, but we are too engrossed in our conversation to care.
“I mean no disrespect to Mordechai, but we were right to go!” asserts Tamar, who has been trying to win me over to her side. “See what happened to Vashti when she displeased the king? It did not help her to be queen and a daughter of royalty. Can you imagine the consequences, had we not attended?”
“I am not one to engage in arguments, but it seems to me that Vashti was punished not so much because she disobeyed the king, but because HaShem saw fit to punish her for her wicked deeds.”
An excerpt from The Gilded Cage: Queen Esther’s Untold Story By Sorele Brownstein
An Interview With The Author
Where are you from?
I was born and raised in Italy. I went to high school in Pittsburgh, PA, and then spent a year in Australia. After I got married, I lived in New York for a couple of years, and then we moved to Davis, CA. We’ve lived here for the past twelve years.
What is your native language?
Italian. But my mother is from New York, and my father is from Montreal. My parents knew I would end up in the U.S. for high school, so they taught me to read in English. It was hard in the beginning. I used to read English books and ask my parents what every word meant. When I came to Pittsburgh I thought I was speaking English, but people kept correcting me. It was frustrating.
Is this your first book?
Yes. I wrote poetry in high school, and even won a contest. But this is my first novel.
What do you do when you are not writing?
I am raising seven boys, ages 14 to 1.5. That’s why it took me so long to write this book. I started writing six or seven years ago, but I would take a long break after having a baby. As I go through the daily work of raising kids, I need to feel that I’m still maintaining some intellectual activity.
Why Esther?
There are so many misconceptions; students at Davis had told me that they thought Mordechai sent Esther to the palace, or that Esther used her beauty to seduce the king. I wanted to correct these misconceptions, but people don’t like reading books of commentaries. I wanted to tell them Esther’s story without being preachy.
How did you do the research?
With Esther, the research was right at the tip of my fingers. Sometimes I looked up the sources in the original, but I mostly used the Meam Loez and the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s sichos, as well as the book Purim and the Persian Empire by Rabbi Yehuda Landy. I also asked local professors about books on archeology of that time period. I found it fascinating.