In Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens introduced a character who has become a quintessential literary villain—a singularly ugly, untrustworthy old Jew who slithers across Victorian London preying on innocent Christian children and profiting by refining their skills in thievery: Fagin.
In her masterful reimagination of the Dickens classic, Allison Epstein rescues the scoundrel from iniquity and gives him a second chance, with a first name, Jacob, and rich backstory about his struggles growing up tainted by the execution of his father for thievery. Too smart and ambitious for the drudgery of life on London’s poorest streets and for the antisemitism that stalks him, Jacob might have his dastardly side. But he’s also smart and caring, in his own complicated way, a gift from a loving mother who dreamed he would become a rabbi.
Epstein proudly calls herself a “history nerd” and joins us to talk about infusing her imagination into the past, the antisemitism of Oliver Twist and why we should root for the lonely, emotionally wounded Fagin.
She is the author of A Tip for the Hangman and Let the Dead Bury the Dead.