NAPOLEON'S MIRAGE

In Cameron’s sequel toBeyond the Ghetto Gates(2020), people of various faiths in 1798 Italy, Egypt, and Israel struggle during Napoleon Bonaparte’s Middle Eastern military campaign.

Mirelle’s life in the town of Ancona is as blessed as it is fraught. Since the French conquered the country in the late 1790s,Jewish people like her were allowed to move out of ghettos, their gates triumphantly dismantled. However, the occupying French impose such prohibitive taxes on her business—which creates ornate Jewish marriage contracts called ketubah—that its survival is in jeopardy. Even worse, her personal reputation has been ruined by scandal, as she abandoned the wealthy David Morpurgo, whom she was intended to marry, and slept with a French soldier—transgressions that even her mother refuses to forgive. Her cousin, Daniel, a lieutenant in the French Army under Napoleon’s command, travels to Egypt. Initially, Daniel is devoted to his leader, but his fidelity wavers as he witnesses the grotesque effects of war and begins to question Napoleon’s dedication to his own troops. Daniel and Mirelle love each other, but Daniel is slow to acknowledge this—a reluctance that Cameron portrays well: “Damn his diffident nature, his fear of losing her forever if he spoke out. She might never know, now, how he felt. Nor would he know if she returned his love.” With admirable intelligence, the author captures the excitement of Mirelle and others around her in response to the rise of Napoleon and the French Revolution, both of which promised the possibility of freedom and the potential establishment of a Jewish homeland in Israel. Part of what makes this historically fascinating novel unusual is the fact that Cameron also presents the perspectives of Egyptians on Napoleon’s campaign, which offers intriguing insight. The author’s prose is clear but unremarkable in style, never moving or hypnotic—however, it remains historically edifying and dramatically compelling.

An engaging entry that combines a historical study with an ongoing dramatic saga.