Yeah, that’s right, acclaimed (and controversial) sci-fi author Orson Scott Card wrote, not just a novel, but a series of novels about the wives of the Old Testament Patriarchs. Who knew? Anyway, not me, until just a while ago and it seemed like an interesting enough pairing that I decided to investigate the series. I’m really glad I did. This book is the first in the series and it’s the story of Abraham from the perspective of Sarah, his wife. It begins when she’s a little girl and, well, I’m not going to say when it ends, because that was a really great stroke, pulling off the ending. The problem with Sarah’s perspective on the story of Abraham is that the climax, Abraham’s thwarted sacrifice of Isaac on Mount Moriah, happens away from her; she doesn’t even know that it happens in the Biblical narrative. So, how do you have a satisfying climax without that moment? Well, Card pulled it off; it’s a really beautiful and moving ending. But it’s a beautiful and moving book all the way around. Card expands on the Biblical narrative of course and adds in a lot of details around the edges, like bringing in elements of other religions of the period and location. He expands the Biblical characters of Hagar, Sarah’s servant, and of Eliezer, Abraham’s right-hand man, and I really loved the emotionally fraught relationships Sarah had with both of them. One of my favorite chapters in the entire book was a chapter that was essentially just a long conversation between Sarah & Eliezer that delves into their characters and their respective relationships with Abraham and how the social structures of the day complicate their relationship. Lot’s wife is retconned into being Sarah’s sister and Lot and his wife get some nice development. What I’m getting at here is that, though the book doesn’t deviate much from the Biblical narrative, what Orson Scott Card has managed to do is bring all these literal icons to life. They have emotional and psychological reality and both the descriptive prose and the dialogue are really well-written, somewhat elevated but not flowery, brisk but not lazy. I’m going on a bit of a “art based on Genesis” project right now, but even if you’re not, this book is very worth picking up. It’s surprisingly great. 4 stars.
tl;dr – acclaimed/controversial sci-fi author succeeds surprisingly well with this series about women of the Old Testament; excellent prose brings these icons to emotionally complex life. 4 stars.