Anna Solomon
This Retelling of the Book of Esther Is the Must-Read Book of the Spring
Like so many of us, writer Anna Solomon is getting through quarantine as best she can. She’s finding small joys in dance parties with her kids, a 12-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son, and spending a lot of time outdoors in Cape Ann, Massachusetts, where Solomon grew up. (Normally the family lives in Brooklyn; you can read her quarantine diary here.)
Solomon is gearing up for the publication of her third novel, The Book of V., which is an inventive “remix” of the Book of Esther, the story of Purim. At its heart, the wide-ranging novel is about the relationships between women, and it covers three different timelines: there’s Ancient Persia, where we get Esther and Vashti like you’ve never read them before; 1970s New England, where Vivian, a senator’s wife, flees to her friend’s house after a disastrous night; and modern-day Brooklyn, where Lily is navigating being a mom to two young daughters.
“As a kid, I believed that Esther was the hero,” Solomon explains to me over the phone. “And I dressed up as Esther like all the other girls and I bought that story. But there was always this sort of niggling voice in my head, like, What’s the deal with Vashti? What’s so bad about her? And why do they think she’s a leper? Also, Where does she go? Those questions stayed with me.”
