There are some fields that should not be churned up.” That’s the central message spoken by one of the characters in a bracing debut novel titled Fervor. Its author, Toby Lloyd, stirs up provocative topics and disentangles myths ranging from gender-roles to feminism, from academia to antisemitism, from Zionism and being Jewish in the twenty-first century.
Set in London 1999, the “capriciously observant" Eric and Hannah Rosenthal pay daily visits to Zeide Yosef. Voluntarily “cocooned in the attic” of the Rosenthal home, Zeide fascinates, yet terrifies all three Rosenthal kids — Gideon, Elsie and Tevyah — witnesses to his tattooed arm, traumatized by his ghastly stories, his denunciation of faith and repetitive references to a boy named Ariel. None of them know anyone named Ariel. Hannah Rosenthal reveres Zeide Yosef, her father-in-law. An accomplished journalist with ultra conservative views, Hannah records Zeide’s harrowing stories of survival in Treblinka. Much against Zeide’s wish and husband Eric’s pleadings not to “stir up the past,” Hannah intends to publish a book about Zeide’s life history. Hannah considers her book, "a moral work,” an obligation to remember the past.
Fourteen-year-old Elsie, "the perfect daughter,” loved reading volumes of biblical stories on her parent’s bookshelves. She’s especially fond of mystical writings of the Zohar and Kabbalah that Zeide mentioned in conversations about the mysterious Ariel. Shortly after Zeide died, Elsie disappeared from home. After a four-day absence, she returns transformed. Her teachers express concern about Elsie’s extreme behavior at school. Hannah prays for a cure. Eric fasts.
Hanna publishes the book about Zeide. Its title, The Gehinom (hell) And Afterwards, is an account of Zeide’s confinement in the “lager,” the murder of his entire family. Hannah notes, Zeide was never “selected” for the death chamber. A commercial success, Hannah’s book becomes a catastrophe for Tovyah Rosenthal, Hannah’s apostate son. An atheist studying history at Oxford University, Tovyah clearly longs to escape the notoriety of his mother’s limelight.
Socially awkward, Tovyah yearns to become “largely invisible." He longs to escape his family, as did his brother Gideon who emigrated to Israel. Tovyah’s life becomes substantially more difficult with the publication of Hannah’s second book, spawned by observing Elsie’s bizarre behavior “summoning the spirits of the dead, talking about bringing a new human being into the world.” Hannah rejected Elsie’s diagnosis of mental illness or severe depression associated with the loss of her grandfather. Through prayer and revelation, Hannah was certain Elsie received “some weird punishment from G-d,” convinced her daughter, Elsie, had become a witch. When Hannah published her new book titled Daughters of Endor none of the Rosenthal’s anticipated the horror that was to unravel at the Shabbat table in their spooky home.