By Fire Possessed: Dona Gracia Nasi by Sandra K. Toro, Santa Fe, N.M.: Gaon Books, 2010, ISBN 978-1-935604-06-8, 209 pages, price not listed
By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO –Set in 16th Century Europe, this historical novel recounts the battle of the House of Mendes, a Jewish shipping, banking and trading company, for safety from the ravages of the Inquisition, corrupt ecclesiastical authorities and greedy kings in Portugal and Italy. It occurs in a time when help and respect for the Jews comes from Muslims, particularly from Sultan Suleiman, ruler of the Ottoman Empire.
Dona Gracia Nasi was a unique woman for her era. Beautiful, brilliant and iron-willed, except for a tragic soft spot towards a treacherous sister, she eventually succeeded to the leadership of a family that bribed the King of Portugal to delay the onset of the Inquisition, and later put into place trade embargoes against city states where Jews had been killed and their property seized. She wielded such power that in many eyes, she was as powerful as some of the kings and queens of her time. Having made a promise to her late husband never to remarry – lest the family fortune pass out of its control – she unabashedly took a lover instead.
Although this book presents to us a fierce, determined protagonist, we’re never exactly quite sure what the attraction to Judaism was for this “New Christian” woman. Raised by a family that was outwardly Christian, though secretly Jewish, Garcia was not particularly knowledgeable about the religion. Rather business was her forté. She used her business acumen to protect her people, but was that simply out of a sense of family and national pride, rather than commitment to any of Judaism’s precepts? As one reads the book, one sees a woman utterly engaged in an alpha male-style contest of power. Clearly she is tenacious and resourceful, but does she have any depth of understanding about the religion that she is fighting for?
In addition to painting the struggle of the Jews to remain a distinct and free people against the onslaught of Catholic and secular authorities, author Sandra K. Toro sketches the conflict between Gracia and her jealous younger sister, Brianda. Notwithstanding an utter lack of interest in business matters (except for fashion and jewelry), Brianda is forever plotting against Gracia – at one time causing her older sister to be thrown into a dungeon for secretly practicing Judaism, a capital crime.
From her cell, Gracia was able to rally sufficient support to win her release and go on to fight many more battles. However, she was all too ready to forgive her sister. This subplot would have been more interesting if author Toro had explored the two sisters’ relationship in real depth. We know that Brianda was jealous of Gracia, perhaps intuitively understanding that her own husband settled for a marriage with her only after he realized he never could marry Gracia. But how this realization played on her –to the point that her hatred would lead her to try to have her sister burned at the stake – is never fully explained.
Perhaps those of us who love history are slaves to the onrush of facts, and don’t have either the interest or the will to invest our characters with flesh-and-blood qualities. To her credit, Porto’s novel provides us with a structure to understand a turbulent time in the world’s and Jewish history, and perhaps that’s all that we should ask of her. She can be proud of producing useful literature. For it to advance to the ranks of great literature, however, By Fire Possessed needs to probe far more deeply into the motivations of the personages involved.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World