By Fire By Water

Just finished another of the books I brought back from ALA and it is another winner. This book, the first novel by Mitchell James Kaplan, will stay with you a long time.

If you like historical novels, this is for you. If you like religious history, this is for you. If you like character studies of complex people, some fictional, some historical, this is the ticket! By Fire By Water tells a compelling story of monumental events coming together in such a way that lives are changed, families are torn apart, fortunes are made and lost, and a new world is discovered.

The cultures of Judaism, Islam and Christianity are coexisting uneasily in the last years of 15th century Spain. Fear and paranoia build as the Inquisition asserts itself, finding heresy and judaizing wherever powerful and corrupt church officials look. They justify unspeakable torture and cruelty in the name of purifying the church, and oh, by the way, also confiscating the homes and property of those they accuse and condemn. The money thus gained supports aggressive wars meant to overcome Muslim settlements and to build the glorious cathedrals which will honor God long after the builders are gone.

The protagonist, Luis de Santangel, is nominally a Christian who is chancellor and confidant of King Ferdinand. His parents and grandparents were Jews who chose to assimilate to protect their family. Though he has not practiced Judaism and calls himself Christian, he is drawn to the Jewish culture and participates in secret conversations which include a Jewish scholar and an intellectual priest. Suspicions of the church hierarchy are raised and Santangel becomes an Inquisition target himself. The young Jewish businesswoman he admires so much becomes an integral part of the story as does a ship captain friend of his, Christopher Columbus, who has a dream to sail west to India, and eventually to Jerusalem. Santangel paves the way for the captain to meet Queen Isabel.

The tensions between the religions centuries ago gives us much to think about now, as religion and political power get so tangled and fused together in our present day. We have much to learn, lots to think about.