God can talk to anyone - A Jewish Q&A with YA author Evonne Marzouk, The Prophetess

In Evonne Marzouk’s Jewish young adult novel, The Prophetess, Rachel is a Jewish American teen whose migraines turn out to be something more than simply headaches…Rachel is called to prophecy.

As a Jewish woman who has always been Orthodox, I read this book through my own specific lens. What a wonderful experience, to read a book that so honestly explores Judaism and the unique experience of taking on new religious practices while surrounded by friends and family who are not on the same path. Yet Rachel begins to notice that her friends and family are going through their own changes, their own problems. As the author points out later in this Q&A, “While certain relationships are toxic and need to end, I feel that if a person needs to sacrifice the people who love them in order to become religious (or make any major life change), they are doing it wrong.”

I caught up with Evonne Marzouk to ask her all the Jewish questions!

Q: While writing The Prophetess, you've said you were influenced by the framework of the heroine's journey and archetypal heroine characters. Often, the framework includes a journey, an initiation, and a return. How and why did you adapt the classic heroine's journey to your story?

A: The hero’s journey is the foundation of stories like The Hobbit, Harry Potter, The Matrix and most superhero stories. I learned about the heroine’s journey from a writing book called 45 Master Characters by Victoria Lynn Schmidt. Based on one of Western civilization’s oldest myths, it is a journey we can see in modern movies such as Frozen and Wonder Woman.

The heroine begins with an illusion that her world is perfect, then has a moment of realization or betrayal. She descends into another world, faces her own death or virtual death, survives through the support of others, and is reborn to come full circle. Unlike the hero, who has his awakening at the end, the heroine awakens at the beginning by realizing she never had power. The hero proves himself to the group; the archetypal heroine needs to discover her own powers and believe in herself. 

My novel The Prophetess uses this framework and puts it in a Jewish context. The magical world Rachel discovers is not Hogwarts or Frozen 2’s enchanted forest, but Judaism, a secret community of Jewish prophets, and the land of Israel. She struggles with spiritual gifts that are too big for her, and ultimately grows into them to become a leader she could never have imagined.

The result, I hope, is a story that inspires Jewish teen girls and women to fulfill their own biggest dreams, while embracing being Jewish as an empowering part of their identities.

Q: Rachel is a reluctant teen, worried about disappointing her friends and family, but ultimately she has to commit to who she wants and needs to be. How can this story empower Jewish teens and women to find their inner Jewish heroines?

A: I love stories that put people in extraordinary situations and challenge them to grow into the biggest versions of themselves. But I don’t like stories that rely too heavily on trauma or tragedy to force a character’s growth. While writing The Prophetess, it would have been easy to kill off a character – or create a much darker consequence for certain characters’ mistakes. That certainly would have prompted a lot of growth, but at what cost? Though of course real life does include challenges and sometimes great sorrow, I believe we can become heroines without having to face tragedy.

Instead of growth through sorrow, I wanted to show what would happen if a typical Jewish American teenager was called for a kind of greatness she could barely understand or imagine at the outset.  What would her parents and friends say? How could she explain this to herself and to others?  And most importantly, how can we integrate who we are with what we are becoming? These kinds of questions can empower readers to embrace their own gifts in the midst of everyday life. I’m also developing a companion journal to enable readers to process these questions more deeply if they wish.

Q: Compared to other Jewish audiences, relatively few books are published for Jewish teens. How do you see The Prophetess filling this gap and do you have any book recommendations in this genre that you've enjoyed?

A: Teens need books that present modern Judaism with all its complexity, offer the opportunity to explore different views and real-life challenges, and call them to be the best they can be. Compared to children’s or adult books, there are relatively few Jewish books written for the teen audience. It can also be challenging for teens to discover the books that do exist, since excellent programs for younger children, like PJ Library’s PJ Our Way, tap out at age 12. Teens have also told me that many Jewish YA books they find focus on Holocaust experiences or other stories of oppression, or Jews with a particularly negative view of being Jewish.

It seems to me that representation of Orthodox Jews – who are often presented in a negative light by the media and pop culture – is also important.  Most Jewish teens have never met an Orthodox Jew -- I certainly hadn’t when I was a teen -- and giving them the chance to relate to Orthodox Jews through literature can help strengthen ties and understanding across the Jewish community.

I’ve been on the lookout for YA books with positive Jewish representation, especially of Orthodox Jews, and in addition to The Prophetess two I’ve read recently are The Last Words We Said by Leah Schreier and The Papercutter by Cindy Rizzo, both unique stories that can resonate with the particular challenges of Jewish teens while also portraying Orthodox Jews in a honest and compassionate light. Working in cooperation with Jewish teens, I’m looking for more Jewish YA, and hoping to create a better space to track and share about engaging Jewish young adult literature over time.

Q: Insider Jewish lingo is a favorite topic of mine. What tactics did you use to write Jewish terms and Hebrew words so they would be accessible to readers? Did the language of the book change as you went through revisions with your editor?

A: There were a few places where Jewish terms became a point of discussion with my publisher.  For example, we disagreed about kipah vs. yarmulke, but I felt that the word kipah is in much more common use today. Another discussion was about how Rachel spells the name G-d (with a dash in the middle), which I explain up front in the first chapter. I preferred to use G-d rather than Hashem, a term which would not be familiar to Rachel at the outset. I included footnotes to explain terms the first time they were presented, and also a glossary of terms for reference at the back of the book.

It was important to me for the book to feel authentically Jewish but still accessible to all. I intentionally chose a non-Jewish developmental editor to help me with the story, because if she could understand it, anyone could.  I’ve been pleased to see Jews of all denominations and even teens and women outside of Jewish tradition understand and appreciate the book. 

Q: Were you inspired by any of your own real-life experiences in writing this book? 

A: Despite my efforts, I haven’t had anyone come to teach me all the secrets of prophecy and invite me to join their secret community. However, I believe in hashgacha pratit – the idea that G-d is guiding us all in the background – and I have had teachers that seemed to show up at just the right time and give me the lesson I needed at that moment.

Here’s one story I can share: I began regular Jewish learning with a chavruta (study partner) after my mother died, and for one of our learning projects I picked Inner Space by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan off a list tucked into a book about Kabbalah I’d bought years before in Tzfat. After we’d learned the entire book, I mentioned to a friend in Jerusalem what I’d been learning, lamenting that it seemed all the great teachers were no longer with us. He revealed to me that the book had been published posthumously. The actual author/editor was alive and teaching in Jerusalem, and was teaching a class on Inner Space for the first time in twenty years!  That’s how I began learning with Rav Avraham Sutton, who had a profound influence on my understanding of Judaism and provided a lot of insights I tried to incorporate into The Prophetess.

Q: Rachel's family and friends don't go on her spiritual journey with her, or make the same religious changes, which is a common experience many readers might recognize. There are many Jews who live a different religious life than their family and friends and find it difficult to make it work. How does Rachel achieve balance and how do you see her and her family five years later?

A: I came from a very secular Jewish background and became Orthodox as a young adult. The transition was difficult, especially for my parents, but we all agreed that if we focused on the love we had for each other, we could continue to have rich and meaningful relationships despite our differences. For example, my mother extended herself by keeping kosher dishes in her house until she died, and we celebrated my parents’ 40th anniversary by cooking a fancy meal in their kitchen for all of their friends instead of going to a non-kosher restaurant. 

One of my beta readers suggested that perhaps Rachel should lose a close friend to show how much she is giving up for her new path. But I wanted to show how Rachel could keep her meaningful relationships, even as she and the others around her change. While certain relationships are toxic and need to end, I feel that if a person needs to sacrifice the people who love them in order to become religious (or make any major life change), they are doing it wrong.

I would hope that as Rachel grows older, her family and friends would continue to love and respect her for who she is, and that she would find ways to keep her relationships intact, though their lives have become fundamentally different.

Q: It's hard to ask about all the other prophets in this book without giving away spoilers, so instead I'll ask about prophecy itself. What research did you do when preparing to write this book, and has the topic sparked any controversy from more religious readers?

A: I drew from Jewish mysticism to inform the more spiritual and prophetic aspects of The Prophetess. I began with Seeing God by Rabbi David Aaron and Inner Space by Aryeh Kaplan, both of which I learned with my kind and patient study partner.  Later, I learned from recordings, classes and personal sessions with Rav Avraham Sutton. I read several passages of The Prophetess directly to Rav Sutton for his feedback. I also learned from Rabbi Doniel Katz and Rivka Malka Perlman. These resources, in addition to several others, are listed in a bibliography at the back of the book. More recently, I have been gratified to discover more women teaching mystical Jewish wisdom, and in particular have been learning deep wisdom from Sarah Yehudit Schneider.

There hasn’t been any public controversy, though some more traditionally-minded Orthodox readers have raised concerns with some parts of The Prophetess. In some parts of the Orthodox community, teens do not have romantic relationships – three kisses excludes the story for them. One of my favorite beta readers felt she couldn’t promote it publicly but called it “bold and daring.” 

Others have questioned how a girl like Rachel – who, at the beginning of the story, eats pork and doesn’t have any working observance of Shabbat – could possibly be called for prophecy. Over time it becomes clear why Rachel herself is called for this specific journey, and how her calling is part of a promise passed through the generations to her.  In The Prophetess, a person’s calling is about their potential – what they can become, rather than who they are today. 

And fundamentally, I believe G-d can choose to talk to whomever G-d wants. It’s up to us whether we’re listening.