This was an incredible read. I'm still absorbing it. I know that I'll be thinking about it for a good, long time.

It's set in New York at the turn of the previous century. A Polish business man decides that he wants a new life, as well as a wife. The new life is easy - he decides to go to America. The wife is not so simple, as he is an unpleasant and unprepossessing man, without much money. As luck would have it, he knows a man who knows how to make him a wife. And so the Golem is born.

In case you don't know what a Golem is - it's a creature of Jewish folklore, a being made of clay, that is utterly obedient to its master's will. Golems traditionally look about as human as a flowerpot, and are huge, strong beings suitable to hard labour. This Golem is something different. She's as strong as any Golem, but she's much better made -- she looks like an unusually tall, handsome woman. Her husband-to-be requests (rather rashly) that she be intelligent, curious, and sexually modest.

She comes to life on the ship en route to America, just in time to see her husband/master die.

So there we have a Golem, a woman alone on her way to America. She's as innocent of experience as a baby, but she's stronger than a grown man. She's supposed to serve her master's will - but she has no master. Instead, it's as though everyone is her master. She can sense the desires of everyone around her, and is instilled with a drive to fulfil their wishes.

So do I have to spell it out - how incredibly evocative this story is? How many themes it touches on?

Elsewhere in New York, a tinsmith works on a copper jar. A very old copper jar full of dents. As he touches his flame to the jar, there's a blinding flash and a naked man with an iron shackle on his arm, appears out of nowhere. This is the Djinni. A being of fire, who in his natural state can take any shape, go anywhere he likes. But this Djinni has been trapped into human form by a wizard many centuries ago. At least, so the Djinni guesses, because he's lost a part of his memory, and doesn't know how he became trapped.

The story follows the lives of the Golem and the Djinni as they try to survive in the human city of New York. Neither of them can sleep, and some of the most evocative scenes describe their night time exploration of New York and how they, inevitably, meet one another.

At which point things get really complicated.

This is a sensitive, thoughtful book. It never takes the easy way out. I think readers who enjoy historical fiction will find it fascinating too. It's a powerful depiction of a New York from the immigrant's point of view.