The Pomegranate Gate
by: Ariel Kaplan
September 26, 2023 Erewhon Books
576 pages
review by: E. Broderick
I’ve read almost every kind of fantasy. Some for the exciting new magic systems or secondary worlds, and others for the familiarity of well worn tropes that represent a comfort read. Portal fantasy is typically the latter. As such it can be a pretty hard sell for agents and editors. Therefore, I’ve never written it. My personal form of self flagellation in that regard is YA sci fi, which I insist on writing despite everyone insisting it is unsalable, but I digress. The point I’m trying to make is that Portals are as old as the fantasy genre itself, have a devoted readership, but must to do something really special to make it through trad pub. The Pomegranate Gate by Ariel Kaplan managed to do just that while also introducing a host of intriguing characters, a very strong voice, and a plot so layered it might as well be an archeological dig.
While there are many viewpoints in The Pomegranate Gate, the two major characters we need to concern ourselves with are Toba, a young lady from a formerly wealthy family who has a host of mysterious talents and ailments, and Naftaly, the world’s worst tailor. Both find themselves fleeing home as an inquisition forces all Jews to leave or convert. Along the journey, Toba manages to fall through a portal into a world of Maziks and discovers some answers about her past. Meanwhile Naftaly seems to feel the need to rescue her and discovers some hidden things about himself too.
Therein ends my plot summary, because as I mentioned before, there are so many twists and turns, layers upon layers, I will get hopelessly lost trying to be succinct about it. In fact, I would dearly love to see the one page synopsis the author created if she queried this traditionally because condensing this epic into that form would be evidence of true magic.
Moving on, I’d like to focus on the things I enjoyed the most about The Pomegranate Gate. There’s a system of lucid dreaming in the Mazik world, where these dreams are shared and can impact reality, that was fascinating and also used to great effect in the plot. Then we come to voice. Toba, who feels neurodivergent to me but is never given a label, manages to split herself into two and we get to spend time in both Toba’s heads. In a true show of skill, Kaplan manages to give them separate and distinct voices. In fact, if the splitting of Toba wasn’t so necessary for the plot, I might have thought she was just showing off. Because the SAME PERSON having such distinct personalities and thoughts was kind of awesome.
Most intriguing of all is how Kaplan pulls off a kind of steamy romance without any actual heat on the page or off. When Naftaly finally figures out he’s never felt desirous of a wife because he, as the reader has suspected for some time, is interested in the other gender, there is a very compelling romance. The yearning is palpable. Even kind of hot. Yet it’s a very low heat book. Forget sex, there’s barely kissing. Somehow it works, even for a person such as myself who typically likes to bring all the heat to romance.
Much like the worlds employed by this book, there are touches of the familiar in the plot, but also stuff that is so unique. Even before anyone steps through any portal the book presents us with a completely Jewish magic system and a community of both humans and magical beings in line with Jewish folklore. It was a comfort read, but also a page turner. Which shouldn’t be shocking since the book does hint that combinations can indeed be superior to their original components.
Basically – for any writer that’s ever been confused when an agents or editor says something is a tough sell but they’ll be willing to take it on if it does something completely new and different, this is the textbook from which to learn what they mean. It’s a portal that utilizes all the best tropes of portals. It will meet your portal expectations. But it will also be totally different from what you expected. What magic is this?
BookishlyJewish requests a review copy from the publisher, and I believe they attempted to send one, but it never arrived so I took it out from the library. I will always find books one way or another. It just takes longer.