SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Light of the Midnight Stars by Rena Rossner

 

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Light of the Midnight Stars by Rena Rossner: https://t.co/GhvYlGtVB4

Short Review: 5.5 out of 10
1/3

— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) April 8, 2021

Short Review (cont): This tale of 3 Jewish teenage daughters with magical gifts in 14th century Eastern Europe deals strongly at times with issues of oppression and assimilation & hiding one's faith, but also makes a lot of baffling misteps as it combines too many stories
2/3

— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) April 8, 2021

Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on April 13, 2021 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.

Readers of this blog may know that I try to read books from authors of a large variety of backgrounds.  Its an approach that has been tremendously rewarding, with it introducing me to worlds and experiences far beyond my own, by peoples with their own different cultures and difficulties that I have or will likely ever have in my life - and these experiences have led to tremendous stories, with tremendously powerful themes.  But one thing I have not done is managed to do is read many SF/F stories based upon my own heritage - namely that of Ashkenazi Judaism*.  Rena Rossner's 2018 novel, Sisters of the Winter Wood (My Review Here) was one of the few books I've read that did do so, and when I saw her second boo - this book - would feature 3 Jewish sisters in 14th Century Europe, I pretty much had to give it a read.  

*This is not to say that Jewish fiction is a small genre, just that I have not read much of it, especially in where it intersects with SF/F*  

Of course, the thing with reading your own heritage is that you feel far more connected to the material, and you can absolutely feel more when things go wrong for people like you.  And as The Light of the Midnight Stars is essentially a tragedy, showing hard the struggle of 14th century Jewry, it hit me brutally hard.  Bu at the same time, when the material itself goes in problematic directions, it's a lot easier to tell.  And well The Light of the Midnight Stars' attempt to mix together old Eastern European folktales with the stories of such Jews is often very problematic, especially as it attempts to use real actual historical characters in the end.  The result is a book that I sadly cannot recommend to others, and feel disappointed about in how it wasted a really compelling tale of Jews torn between the forces of oppression and assimilation & hiding.  

TRIGGER WARNING:  Rape.  

------------------------------------------------Plot Summary----------------------------------------------------
As a descendant of King Solomon, Rabbi Isaac, leader of a small Jewish community in his Hungarian village of Trnava, possesses a number of magical powers.  And those powers passed on to his three daughters - older Hannah, a calm girl who can grow plants and heal others with a prayer; emotional Sarah, who can call fire from nothingness and wants nothing more than to learn it, control it, and to learn how to transform like her father; and the youngest girl, Levana, the shy daughter who can read the magic of the stars.  But the girls are coming into their powers during a time of great change and misery, as a Black Mist begins to spread across Europe.  

The resultant tides of change, and the blame that will be laid at the feet of Jews like themselves, will force the three daughters, and their parents, into crises of faith as all those they love and care about are torn apart by the darkness.  And so the three girls will be forced into their own separate paths as they try to find a way forward, something to love, and a future for themselves and their descendants.....
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It is practically impossible to talk about The Light of the Midnight Stars, and where it goes right and wrong, without spoiling the book's mid-book plot twist.  The story is told in segments, with an omniscient narrator telling some details about what is happening in the setting at the moment, and then following that with chapters from each of the three daughters' perspectives in succession.  The daughters begin the story as unique but sheltered girls - with Hannah being calm but desperate to possibly get a chance to explore the rest of the world, a chance she's given when a Prince comes and begs for someone to help heal his mother; with Sarah being desperate to have someone teach her about how to use her powers when her father seems to refuse to, and desperately latching on to a boy in her father's group who takes a shine to her and tries to teach her the blessings related to her power; and with Levana looking up at the stars and seeing inklings of what's coming and wishing someone else would see them too, even as she happily follows her father to synagogue as the seeming favorite of the trio. 

The one thing I will say, without spoiling, is that this is not a happy story, even as it seems it could be heading in that direction in the beginning - the Black Mist (a fantasy version of the plague) and the pogroms and the sense of being Others will prevent the Jews of the region, such as our protagonists, from simply being able to find happy lives in their own segregated village.  It's a tale that, unlike Rossner's prior novel, deals with some heavy serious Jewish themes of the time - the issues of intermarriage in multiple ways, the difficulties of trying to survive among oppression and the choice to possibly hide instead of practice one's religion openly, or even to assimilate.  But while its three characters are really strong and really done well, the story has a number of problems that overwhelm its great character work and interesting themes, problems both specific for Jewish readers and for readers in general, that really hurt this book hard.  

Spoilers below

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The book's mid-book twist really shines a light on the struggle of Jews in the area, and how so many of them wound up trying to assimilate into their Christian neighbors' customs, as the family escapes a pogrom that kills Hannah's husband (the prince who converted for her) and Sarah's love, and the Rabbi decides they will no longer be Jews.  They each take new names, which replace their original names at the start of each chapter, but while we see this effort by the Rabbi, slowly but surely their old Jewish customs come out in small ways, especially for the daughters who can't help remembering the blessings (the youngest daughter even at one point, in a bit of an anachronism, saying "Ani Ma'amin").  And this is very much what happened to a lot of Jews of this era (including as per the author's note, Rossner's own heritage), who may have even forgotten why they performed some customs as they tried to assimilate, but nonetheless kept doing them....because even as they try to assimilate like this, they can't escape their true heritages both internally in their own minds and externally as they see how others react.  This is especially strong when seen by Hannah's story.  

But while that storyline is really well done, and the themes are easy to see as parallels to our real world, Sarah and Levana's storylines in the second act are utter disasters.  Levana's storyline appears to combine per the author two folk tales - one of children born with a star of light on their forehead, which Rossner connects to Jews by making the stars the Magen David, as well as a story of a girl who fell in love with and had children with a star.  And so the result - with a girl having children through what is essentially sex with a celestial being has some clear issues when it involves a Jew - even if the fact that she has two boys rather than a single child removes the possibility of a clear Jesus parallel.  And of course the tragic way in ends, with Levana being lynched for it and Hannah saving the children, doesn't help too much, even if it ends on a hopeful note.  

But Sarah's storyline is even worse, and I just don't understand what Rossner was thinking here.  After her first love never comes back from the end of the first act, Sarah falls in love with their new region's Prince, Theodor.  Except Theodor turns out to be Theodora, a girl, which Sarah realizes, given how much she is hiding of her true self - she seems to be a magical serpent inside (spoiler: she's more) - is not a problem.  But Theodora is a real historical person, and like in real life, she is married off to a Prince of Bulgaria, Ivan Alexander, and Sarah comes with Theodora as her ladies' maid.  But Ivan Alexander knows that Theodora is queer and has no interest in her, and instead essentially rapes Sarah to get an heir instead (Sarah agrees to bear children for Theodora's sake...out of love?).  And then Theodora and Sarah go to a monastery so that Sarah can have the child without it being clear whose child it was....and Theodora, after the two transform into animals and escape for a bit, escapes and leaves SARAH behind - the Jew martyrs herself for her Christian love?  

But it gets worse - Sarah changes her name to Sarah-Theodora, and it's supposed to be hopeful that she reigns as Empress and has a child who is very like Theodora.  But Sarah-Theodora was a REAL PERSON, a Jew who married the Prince, converted to Eastern Orthodoxy, and PERSECUTED JEWS.  Yes that's right, our hopeful ending is that our Jewish bi-girl martyrs herself for her Christian love, marries the cruel prince, and becomes the historical monster who persecuted other Jews.  It is an absolutely dumbfounding choice, one which most people won't realize until they read the Author's Note and realize Sarah-Theodora was a real person and then look her up....and then find themselves utterly horrified.  

The result here is that well, while there's some really interesting and poignant stuff here, the ending of those two plotlines, 2/3 of the book, is just utterly dumbfunding and infuriating, especially to a  Jewish person such as myself.  I cannot explain these choices and they made it impossible for me to enjoy this book in the end.  Sigh.