THE BOOK FAIR

The story of Gracia Mendes Nasi (1510 to 1569), the consummate business woman who devoted her life to promote and benefit her Jewish brethren.   The book details the heroine’s life including business adventures, continual struggles with the oppressive Church, quarrels with family, and her many escapes from persecutions.

Although the novel is historically based, the author fictionalizes much of Nasi’s personal life.  In spite of colorful depictions of the era, and innumerable descriptions of architecture, foods and clothing, the characters come across as one-dimensional.  Excluding some few passages, the overwhelmingly stiff dialogue debilitates the warmth of interaction between the characters that then present as distant, and lacking a sense of realness.  The most vivid character, Nasi’s younger sister, Briandia, proves the most annoying, and much of the novel covers their quarrel over monetary control.

However, considering all, Michal Regev’s work offers a genuine glimpse of Jewish history in Europe at the time of the Inquisition.