“I am retribution!” is the battle cry of Vera the golem in Aden Polydoros’s brilliant new young adult novel Wrath Becomes Her, which comes out tomorrow, October 10. I’ve been impressed with Polydoros’s ability to seamlessly blend Jewish culture and folklore with the Gothic ever since reading his debut, The City Beautiful, a couple of years ago. But he takes this to a whole new level in Wrath Becomes Her, creating the kind of book I really wish I could have read as a teen.
In Lithuania at the height of World War II, Vera awakens in a hayloft hideaway, watching her own body take shape before her eyes as Ezra constructs her from clay and sorcery. She is no ordinary golem, for in his grief and despair Ezra has imbued her with pieces of his dead daughter, Chaya—a seventeen-year-old resistance fighter recently killed by the Nazis. Vera has been created for vengeance, to find and destroy those responsible for Chaya’s death. But when their hiding place is attacked and Vera is thrust out into the world, she finds that her mission—and her identity—isn’t so simple. She can hunt down the man who shot Chaya and the man who gave the order, but what about the rest of the Nazi forces who are responsible for slaughtering whole villages of Jews just like Chaya? And what about the Lithuanian collaborators or the complacent villagers who stood by as their neighbors were taken from their homes? Vera could bathe the Rudniki Forest in blood and still not feel like her revenge was complete. Meanwhile, the very people Vera was built to protect would only view her as a monster if they knew the full truth of how she was created. This knowledge hangs over Vera as she grows closer with Akiva, the boy she knows from Chaya’s memories of stolen kisses and exhilarating guerilla missions. Together, they must track down what became of Vera’s creator and his cache of occult texts before this forbidden knowledge becomes a dangerous weapon in the hands of the enemy. But as she fights to avenge the dead and protect the living, Vera is also fighting for a future for herself.
Wrath Becomes Her deftly mixes the traditional golem of Jewish folklore with elements of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. In Jewish legend, golems are creatures made purely from clay and animated through the mystical knowledge of learned scholars. In this novel, Ezra violates Jewish law and cultural taboos to create Vera using the body parts of the dead, calling her “a desecration, but necessary.” Like Victor Frankenstein, Ezra is repulsed by his creation and cannot give her the kind of fatherly love and affection she craves so desperately. Like Frankenstein’s monster, Vera fears being rejected by the world and struggles to find a place where she can belong. Throughout the book, Vera wrestles with the question of what makes someone human and what makes someone a monster. She feels guilty for the method of her creation, but also frustrated that she is hated for something that happened before she ever came into being and over which she had no control. Luckily, she has an easier time finding community than Frankenstein’s monster did. Though she is careful at first to hide the blasphemous aspects of her creation, she is able to meet Jews who at least have the context of knowing what a golem is and are willing to welcome her into their spaces long enough to get to know her. It is these relationships with others and with a larger community that ultimately give Vera a sense of purpose and identity strong enough to let her imagine the future.
My favorite thing about this book is how deeply, unapologetically Jewish it is. I’ve written a bit before about how we’ve really seen a rise in Jewish fantasy and horror within the last few years. However, I find that many of these books hold back, only incorporating one or two elements from Jewish history or folklore while still trying to be palatable or familiar to a non-Jewish audience. But Wrath Becomes Her is not just a historical fantasy novel with a golem in it. The entire book is deeply immersed in Jewish practices, traditions, philosophies, and spiritual teachings. Yet this is done in a way that I think will still be accessible to non-Jewish readers. There’s a glossary in the back explaining Hebrew and Yiddish words and religious terms. And throughout the novel, the author smoothly works in explanations for the golem myth, the legend of Pardes, and other culturally specific stories, phrases, or ideas. This is absolutely a book that can be enjoyed by anyone, but I’m so excited for the current generation of young readers that will get to grow up with fun fantasy novels that celebrate and revel in their Jewishness.
If you like thought-provoking Gothic tales and action-packed stories about punching Nazis, Wrath Becomes Her has it all! You can find the book on shelves tomorrow at your favorite local retailer, or preorder it online now using this Bookshop.org affiliate link and support The Gothic Library in the process. Once you’ve read it, be sure to come back and let me know what you think in the comments!
Definitely adding to my to-read list!