Yael and her father, a Zealot assassin who blames Yael for her mother’s death in childbirth, escape the slaughter of the fall of Jerusalem. “The Dovekeepers” follows the arrival of all four to the fortress and the run-up to the massacre, thus prolonging the coming horror. In the beginning, the women, who are all guarding secrets, are wary of one another, but they ultimately form an alliance. All the women are assigned to care for the dovecotes, which supply fertilizer for Masada’s gardens, a lowly task that allows them more freedom. Hoffman views the siege from the eyes of four outsiders: Yael, a girl who arrives pregnant with her dead lover’s child Revka, who is tending her two grandsons, who have not spoken since witnessing the torture and murder of their mother Shirah, a witch with ties to the Zealot leader and Shirah's daughter, Aziza, who was raised as a warrior by her foster father in Moab. Fans of both Hoffman’s earlier work and Anita Diamant’s bestselling “Red Tent,” another feminist take set in Biblical times, should devour the multipart epic. And, for the most part, she succeeds – delivering her best novel in years.
In The Dovekeepers Alice Hoffman travels far from the New England setting of bestsellers such as “Practical Magic” and “Here on Earth” for the biggest, most ambitious book of her career. Only two women and five children survived the the first century A.D siege, according to the historian Josephus, who published the only known account. After holding out for months against the Romans, more than 900 Jews, including children, died in a suicide pact rather than surrender. Few times in history has the phrase “death before dishonor” been taken to such an extreme as at the siege of Masada.
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