Sarah

April 5, 2004
Yet another entry in the burgeoning subgenre of fictional portraits of biblical women (see, for example, Rebecca Kohn's retelling of the story of Queen Esther in The Gilded Chamber
, Forecasts, Mar. 15), Halter's novel (the first in a trilogy) adheres to a by now familiar formula: frank sexual and emotional revelations presented against a backdrop of burnished interiors. Halter's Sarah is born Sarai, the daughter of one of the most powerful lords of Ur. At the age of 12, she is pledged in marriage to a man she has never met, and despite the finery of her bridal chamber ("Everything was new.... Linen rakutus
as smooth as a baby's skin"), she flees in distress. Dragged back to her father's house, she doses herself with an herbal concoction that leaves her barren and is made a priestess of Ishtar, Ur's goddess of war. Six years later, an encounter with her childhood love, the handsome Abram, furnishes her with the chance she's been waiting for: she escapes with him and joins his nomadic tribe. Her contentment is short-lived, because Abram is called by God to leave his tribe and set out for a new land, whereupon the familiar (but freely adapted) Bible story unfolds. The misery Sarah feels at being barren, the indecent love her nephew Lot expresses for her, her encounter with Pharaoh and her quarrel with Hagar, the slave woman who gives Abram a child, shape the novel's second half. Halter isn't afraid to present headstrong Sarah as bitter in her old age, and his complex portrait of the biblical matriarch gives this solid if predictable novel a dash of freshness.

March 15, 2004
The first entry in a new historical trilogy about the women of the Old Testament, this is making its American debut after being published to international acclaim in France last year. It joins a growing collection of novels about what Halter (The Book of Abraham) has called the "feminine Bible": the stories of the matriarchs, queens, and female prophets of Scripture. Sarah is the favorite daughter of a lord of Ur, a city-state of Sumeria. Raised in luxury and privilege, she defies her father on the day of her marriage and escapes into the lower city, where she meets Abraham of the nomadic mar.Tu people. Although soldiers take her home, she can't forget the young man who captured her heart and imagination. Owing to an injudicious use of infertility herbs in an effort to stave off marriage, Sarah renders herself sterile and is dedicated to the temple of Ishtar, where she serves as a revered Sacred Handmaid of the Blood for several years until she meets Abraham again. This time, she successfully escapes, and the two dedicate themselves to the one, true, invisible God and create a nation. A powerful addition to a genre made popular by Anita Diamant's The Red Tent, this is recommended for all public libraries; a reader's guide suitable for book discussion groups will be made available. [See also Rebecca Kohn's The Gilded Chamber: A Novel of Queen Esther, LJ 2/15/04.-Ed.]-Jane Baird, Anchorage Municipal Libs., AK

Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2004
Adult/High School -Halter offers a retelling of the Old Testament story of Abraham and Sarah; the birth of their son, Isaac; and the creation of the Jewish people. Before Sarai can become Sarah, she must first be a teenager. The daughter of a lord of Ur, she is frightened by her first menstrual blood and runs away from an arranged marriage and meets a nomad boy named Abram. Even though they spend only one night together, she feels an intense connection with him, but she cannot imagine a future with someone so different from herself and returns to her father's house. Still frightened of becoming a wife and mother, she purchases herbs that leave her infertile and is dedicated as a Priestess of Ishtar. Years later, the two are reunited and marry. Readers will find the story compelling, especially Sarai's decision to run away from an arranged marriage. As a newly married wife who loves her husband but is infertile, her relationships with other women in the tribe and her subsequent jealousy are believable. This is a good choice for readers who enjoyed Anita Diamant's The Red Tent (St. Martin's, 1997) or who are interested in historical fiction from a feminist perspective.-Maureen L. Hartman, Minneapolis Public Library

Copyright 2004 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2004
With the success of " The Red Tent " (1997), the women of the Bible became fair game for writers of historical fiction. This novel about Sarah is grounded in its biblical source material even as it twists tales all its own.Halter's " Sarah, " already a best-seller in France, begins at that matriarch's tomb in Hebron, where she awaits her death and remembers her life. In Halter's telling, Sarah is no willing handmaiden of the one God. A Sumerian girl raised in luxury, she runs away from an arranged marriage and takes an elixir that stops menstruation; so instead of a wife, she becomes a high priestess of Ishtar. But her love for Abraham, whom she has met briefly, sustains her and leads her back to him. Halter works hard at establishing some feminist bona fides for her heroine ("Sarah is the prototype of the free woman"), but however beguiling such speculation may be, there is a tendency here to pass off legend as fact. Still, the writing is lively and shimmering with detail, and if some aspects of Sarah's story seem surprisingly truncated (the binding of Isaac, for example), the tale rolls along smoothly and, with the help of a big push from the publisher, just may hit it big on the book-club circuit. " Sarah " is the first in Halter's Canaan trilogy, which will conclude with novels about Lilah and Zipporah. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)