The Weight of Ink

An intellectual and emotional jigsaw puzzle of a novel for fans of A.S. Byatt's Possession and Geraldine Brooks' People of the Book.

Set in London of the 1660s and of the early twenty-first century, The Weight of Ink is the interwoven tale of two women of remarkable intellect- Ester Velasquez, an emigrant from Amsterdam who is permitted to scribe for a blind rabbi, just before the plague hits the city; and Helen Watt, an ailing historian with a love of Jewish history.

When Helen is summoned by a former student to view a cache of newly discovered seventeenth-century Jewish documents, she enlists the help of Aaron Levy, an American graduate student as impatient as he is charming, and embarks on one last project- to determine the identity of the documents' scribe, the elusive "Aleph."

Electrifying and ambitious, The Weight of Ink is about women separated by centuries - and the choices and sacrifices they must make in order to reconcile the life of the heart and mind.