Starred review from October 7, 2024
In this magnificent retelling of Oliver Twist, Epstein (Let the Dead Bury the Dead) focuses on one of the original novel’s most controversial characters, Jacob Fagin. The son of a thief, Jacob is raised after his father’s execution by his seamstress mother, Leah, in East London. At 11, he glimpses a pickpocket at work and persuades the man to teach him the trade, at which he proves to be a natural. Leah warns him about the dangers, but he can’t resist the chance for an income far greater than what he could earn at the menial jobs available to lower-class Jews. After Leah dies of fever when he’s 16, Jacob makes his home in an abandoned building. Several years later, he takes in a badly beaten younger boy, Bill Sikes, and the two form a deep bond. By 1838, Bill has matured into one of London’s most daring housebreakers. The same year, Oliver Twist, a minor character in Epstein’s novel, arrives on Jacob’s doorstep and joins his tribe of young thieves, whom Jacob manages as skillfully as he does the risk of arrest. The group’s stability is threatened, however, by Bill’s increasingly reckless burglaries and volatile relationship with pickpocket Nancy Reed. Epstein’s Fagin, rarely admirable but surprisingly sympathetic, is an unforgettable creation, and her vibrant secondary characters and depictions of Victorian London add to the novel’s power. Dickens’s fans and critics alike will love this. Agent: Bridget Smith, Jabberwocky Literary.