“Dovekeepers” is the first book I’ve read of Alice Hoffmans’. In fact, one
evening my wife looked at the book while I was reading in bed and said:
“You’re reading Alice Hoffman? I’ve read Alice Hoffman. But you don’t
read Alice Hoffman!”. And so I DID read Alice Hoffman and I liked Alice
Hoffman. This is a very good book. It’s real deep and very weighty.
“Dovekeepers” orbits around the real life events of the early 70s A.D. in
ancient Judea. Rome was large and in charge and in the midst of
shattering a Judean rebellion (seen commemorated in the famous Arch
of Titus in the Roman Forum only a few hundred yards from the
Colosseum in Italy). Several hundred Jews fled Jerusalem to the desert
near the Dead Sea and moved into the former mountain fortress of King
Herod at Masada. While the proud Jewish rebels held off a Roman
legion for several years, Rome ultimately prevailed and all but two
women and five children killed themselves rather than allow themselves
to be overrun.
Hoffman’s novel follows the lives of four women who all find
themselves on Masada. Each woman has a dedicated 100-150 pages that
weave in and out of each other’s stories with the collective whole
building a comprehensive picture of their mutual plight. The stories
connect the women together in ways that are obvious and follow the
primary arc of the novel, but also in ways that are surprising and
poignantly fulfilling. The connections build and develop on many
levels: physically, emotionally, and symbolically. The book is full of
characters who are broken and hurt; affected by some deep trauma
catalyzed by the Roman attacks on Jerusalem; driving each, by their
own will or otherwise, to the fortress in the desert. One of Hoffman’s
women is Yael, a deeply fractured and self actualizing individual who
sums up the disparate journeys that brought the women to Masada:
“We came like doves across the desert. In a time when there was
nothing but death, we were grateful for anything, and most grateful of
all when we awoke to another day.” You’ll feel the weight of each
character’s pain and sorrow increase as the novel progresses. There are
few happy endings. Hoffman’s themes cover the gamut from fate and
destiny, to religion and love, and the depths of devotion.
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