WOMS: The Familiar

I hadn’t planned on reading The Familiar because the cover creeped me out a bit and I wasn’t sure if it would be too dark for me. How wrong I was. I’m so glad my friend persuaded me to give this a read because it was a heartbreaking, beautiful love story, one only Leigh Bardugo could have written.

Though I haven’t read her new Ninth House series, I have read all but one of Bardugo’s Grishaverse books. To me, Bardugo is a superior writer because she has a way of weaving tragedy so humane into the fabric of her worlds. E, everything is tinged with a bittersweetness, like biting into a semi-sweet chocolate chip.The Familiar is no exception, and it is one of her best, I think. 

Set during the height of the Spanish Inquisition, a young Jewish woman named Luiza finds herself thrown into the midst of political tensions when she accidentally reveals her magical abilities to her employer. Luiza’s mistress uses her magic to gain influence and climb Madrid’s social ladder, but things quickly sour when Luiza’s powers capture the eye of Senor Victor de Paredes, an affluent and scheming man. Senor Paredes is aided by his familiar, Santangel, who senses a great power in Luiza, and is tasked with helping her unleash it. She’s been chosen to perform in a series of magical trials before the king’s former secretary, and she must not fail. As Luiza enters the torneo, she finds herself falling deeper into a world of suspicion and lies with only Santangel to guide her and help her hide her true identity before the Inquisitors sniff her out.

What I appreciated most about Luiza is her struggle to find herself, to be true to herself, when all her life she’s been told to hide, to suppress, to withhold. As a converso, she lives a dual life, one for the public as a dutiful Catholic and another secret one of memories and weaving magic through the remnants of her Hebrew. Each time she wields her magic, she fears the Inquisitors will throw her into prison at Toledo, but her need to escape a scullion’s life, to live, is worth that risk. Though many tell Luiza she’s too ambitious, it is her fierce determination which attracts Santangel to her.

One of the images Bardugo paints is a scene where the two women helping Luiza prepare for the trials discuss what to do about her hair. They uncover it from her maid’s cap and take out her braids to reveal a luscious mane of thick rich curls.

What I appreciated most about Luiza is her struggle to find herself, to be true to herself, when all her life she’s been told to hide, to suppress, to withhold, and the man who falls in love with her true self. One of the images Bardugo paints is a scene where the two women helping Luiza prepare for the trials discuss what to do about her hair. They uncover it from her maid’s cap, and take out her braids, to reveal a luscious mane of thick rich curls.

Desert hair as her mother called it as she would comb and oil it for her before she died. A hair bred from survival.

The two women weigh their options, leaning towards shaving all Luiza’s hair off and having her wear wigs. Santangel appears from the shadows and commands they will not touch a single strand of hair on her head. Luiza is stunned by his protectiveness, and the women comply with his wishes. It is Luiza’s hair which becomes an intoxicating lure and bewitches Santangel as he succumbs to his feelings for her.

As someone who has hair similar to Luiza, not nearly as springy, but definitely thick and curly and usually unmanageable, to read about a character like me in that way when I never have before—it was deeply moving.

A few months before Bardugo’s story about a Jewish woman surviving the Inquisition, a similar novel was published by Ariel Kaplan, The Pomegranate Gate. However, the only similarities these novels share is their Sephardic inspirations. Where Bardugo’s is about a converso who fights to keep her Jewish identity hidden, and the struggles she endures with living two lives—a public one as a dutiful Catholic and her private, secret ways of weaving magic through her Hebrew—Kaplan’s is about those fleeing the Inquisitors before they’re forced to convert. One is a story of survival of an individual, where the other is about the survival of a community.

Their shared similarities and differences reminded me a bit of two prominent films set during the Shoah, namely Schindler’s List and The Pianist. Though in The Pianist, the main character never endures a forced conversion to hide his Jewishness and survive, it is the story of an individual who endured the horrors of the Holocaust and lived. In contrast, Schindler’s List is about an entire community who survives the N*zi regime and genocide together.

I expected a much darker, more supernatural, story, but the magic suffused throughout the world gave it a touch of realism so it read more like a tragic fairy tale. Luiza’s struggles with her identity I think are a very real and current, if not prevalent, challenge many of us face, especially in the midst of such adversity. The Familiar, is a relevant and potent story, especially in our climate of Jewish survival. The juxtaposition of Luiza finding love and acceptance in the midst of persecution, and the freedom she obtains when she surrenders and embraces her Jewishness, is exquisitely poignant and will haunt you long after you close the book.

Let me know what you think of Bardugo’s latest novel in the comments below! Follow me on Goodreads to see what I might review next.

This review was originally featured in Bookishly Jewish, a website devoted to promoting Jewish fiction across all genres. Learn more about it here.