Author Sherry Jones reads from her forthcoming novel "Four Sisters, All Queens"

Story time! Below, the fabulous Sherry Jones reads from her forthcoming novel, Four Sisters, All Queens, which promises to be another well told, impeccably researched story.

From the flap:

From the award-winning author of the controversial international bestseller The Jewel of Medina, a historical novel that chronicles the lives of four sisters, all daughters of Beatrice of Provence — all of whom became queens in medieval Europe. When Beatrice of Savoy, countess of Provence, sends her four beautiful, accomplished daughters to become queens, she admonishes them: Family comes first. As a result, the daughters — Marguerite, queen of France; Eleanor, queen of England; Sanchia, queen of Germany; and Beatrice, queen of Sicily — work not only to expand their husbands’ empires and broker peace between nations, but also to bring the House of Savoy to greater power and influence than before. Their father’s death, however, tears the sisters apart, pitting them against one another for the legacy each believes rightfully hers — Provence itself.

Told from alternating points of view of all four queens, and set in the tumultuous thirteenth century, this is a tale of greed, lust, ambition, and sibling rivalry on a royal scale, exploring the meaning of true power and bringing to life four of the most celebrated women of their time—each of whom had an impact on the history of Europe.

Reflections on a firestorm (3 Questions for Sherry Jones, author of "The Sword of Medina")

Fourteen months ago, authors and others in the publishing industry were stunned to hear that Random House was pulling the plug on a six-figure, two-book deal, the fiction debut of journalist Sherry Jones, a matter of weeks before the first book was set to hit bookstores. The news touched off a firestorm of controversy, raised some tough questions, and threatened to drown the book in a flood of the very misconceptions and prejudices Jones had hoped the story would dispel. Ultimately, Jones reached a settlement with RH, and brave Beaufort Books stepped up and released The Jewel of Medina last October. This month the sequel, The Sword of Medina, is in bookstores.

From the press kit:

A'isha, the youngest wife of the Prophet Muhammad, charmed him with her wit and intelligence, eventually earning the confidence and respect of her husband and the community. When Muhammad dies without a successor, A'isha and her sister wives are devastated with grief and struggle in their new roles as Mothers of the Believers without his presence. Even worse, the Muslim community is thrown into turmoil as a Bedouin army threatens its very survival.

After losing his Prophet and then his beloved wife, Ali, the Prophet's only surviving heir, is torn. The newly chosen leadership of the faith is pressuring him to swear allegiance to them, while others urge him to seek power himself so he can lead the Muslim people as Muhammad intended. Ali fears if he does not take action, Muhammad's successors and their corrupt advisors could endanger the survival of Islam and all of its followers.

Before dying, Muhammad left his jeweled sword, al-Ma'thur, to A'isha, telling her to use it in the jihad to come. But what if the jihad is against her own people? After twenty years of distrust and anger, can A'isha and Ali come together to preserve the future of their people and their faith--or will their hatred of each other destroy everything Muhammad worked to build? This climactic sequel to the controversial The Jewel of Medina returns to 7th century Arabia to discover whether, after fighting a civil war, a people can ever truly heal.

It's been a big year, but Sherry found a moment to share a few thoughts on staying true and pushing through...

We have to start by catching up. How the heck are you? Tell us about the roller coaster ride you've been on since the enormous controversy over the publication of The Jewel of Medina.
"Roller coaster" pretty much sums it up. A year ago, I was getting death threats, directly and online, and trying to keep my British publisher after his home office was attacked. I got several nasty reviews from U.S. critics who, by and large, never even discussed The Jewel of Medina but focused on the controversy. I had hate mail from Islamophobes offended by my portrayal of Islam and the Prophet Muhammad. But I tried to keep my goals in sight.

I wrote The Jewel of Medina not only out of a huge respect and regard for A'isha, the book's protagonist and the most famous and influential woman in all of Islam, but also out of a desire to demonstrate that oppression of women is not Islamic. The Sword of Medina shows how women's considerable rights under Muhammad were eroded by the male power structure after the Prophet's death. Both are feminist books. They're also books that I hope will help eliminate hatred by helping non-Muslims understand Islam and its founders. So even as I've been attacked by various factions for mostly political reasons, I've kept love and peace in mind. The result is that I've been able to rise above the nastiness and speak around the world about women's rights, women in Islam, Islamophobia, and, of course, free speech, which as a journalist I hold very dear.

The Sword of Medina continues the compelling story of A'isha, the youngest wife of Muhammad, after the death of the Prophet, taking us back to 7th century Arabia and tossing us into the middle of a civil war. You haven't backed down a bit from the story, but did the events of the past 18 months influence your approach to the material?

I wrote The Sword of Medina before the controversy erupted, and had turned it in to Random House before I learned of their decision to "indefinitely postpone" publication of both books. Since I'd already done most of the research and I already knew my characters, The Sword of Medina practically wrote itself. But in the wake of the controversy, I'm glad I made some of the choices I made for the sequel. I was aware, for instance, that Ali, Muhammad's cousin and A'isha's nemesis, comes off as a jerk in The Jewel of Medina. Of course he was much more complex than that, but the story is from the point of view of A'isha, who didn't like him. In The Sword of Medina, I included Ali's voice. As a result, both he and A'isha are deeper, rounder, fuller characters -- and the Shi'a version of events gets told as well as the Sunni version, which prevailed in the first book.

You must feel like you've climbed a mountain with these two books, my dear. A phenomenal way to begin a career as a novelist at a pivotal moment in the publishing industry -- and in the world. Where will you go from here?
I've always had many more ideas than time to execute them. The same holds true now. I'm working on another historical fiction novel and I have at least one more in mind after that, but I also have contemporary fiction in mind. The themes that seem to excite me the most are women's rights and the huge influence of religion on societies. I worked as a journalist for thirty years and I never lost my idealistic hopes of making a positive difference in the world. I hope to do the same now through fiction.

Visit Sherry's website for more.

Sherry Jones and The Jewel of Medina: "Dreams die in shards."

Sherry Jones interviewed me for the Missoulian in 1996 when my first novel came out. Kindred spirits, we stayed in touch over the years as she labored toward the dream of publishing her own first book, A’isha, Beloved of Muhammad, an ambitious historical novel about the Prophet’s child bride. Last year, Sherry’s opus sold to a Random House imprint in a six-figure, two-book deal. Retitled The Jewel of Medina, it was scheduled for publication August 12, 2008.

But in late May, Random House abruptly canceled plans for Jewel and its sequel “for the safety of the author, employees of Random House, booksellers and anyone else who would be involved in distribution and sale of the novel.”

According to Asra Nomani of the Wall Street Journal, a review copy was sent to Denise Spellberg, an associate professor of Islamic history at the University of Texas in Austin, in hopes that she would offer a promotional quote. Instead of simply declining to blurb the book, Dr. Spellberg called an editor, who circulated an email to other powers that be at the publisher: “Denise says it is 'a declaration of war . . . explosive stuff . . . a national security issue.' …Does not know if the author and Ballantine folks are clueless or calculating, but thinks the book should be withdrawn ASAP.”

Kurt Vonnegut said, “Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.” Dr. Spellberg’s cherry on top was a “frantic” phone call to Shahed Amanullah, the editor of a popular Muslim website, who fired off an email saying he knew nothing about the book but had been told it was “incredibly offensive”. The message was forwarded far and wide, and a recipient proposed a plan to flood Random House with emails demanding that “this new attempt to slander the Prophet” be taken off the market with the author’s apologies.

Spellberg has said the book is “a very ugly, stupid piece of work” that turns A’isha’s story into “soft core pornography” (an amazing accomplishment for a book with no sex scenes), comparing it to Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, which is (as much as I love my friend) patently ridiculous. This book could more accurately be compared to The Red Tent, Anita Diamant’s beautiful Torah-based bestseller, which offered modern readers a greater understanding of a woman’s life in an ancient and extremely foreign culture. With utmost respect for Islam, Sherry had envisioned building a bridge to A’isha’s world. Now she wrote to me, devastated: “Dreams die in shards.”

“I objected strenuously to the claim that ‘The Jewel of Medina’ was ‘extensively researched,’” Dr. Spellberg said. “As an expert on Aisha's life, I felt it was my professional responsibility to counter this novel's fallacious representation...”

Literary quality is a matter of personal taste, and I’ll resist speculating on Dr. Spellberg’s motives, but she’s wrong about the research. Sherry learned Arabic and spent two years immersed in scripture, scouring ancient and modern writings, weighing widely varying interpretations with a journalist’s impartiality. Then she did what many academics and religious fundamentalists don’t want anyone to do: she made up her own mind.

Dr. Spellberg told the WSJ, “If Ms. Nomani and readers of the Journal wish to allow literature to ‘move civilization forward,’ then they should read a novel that gets history right.”

Would that be the “right history” according to the Qur’an, in which fishermen were transformed into apes? (Sura 2: 65) Or the Pentateuch/Torah, in which angels had sex with girls and spawned a race of giants? (Genesis 6:1-4) Or the New Testament, in which decomposing corpses strolled about town? (Matthew 27:52) As a storyteller, I have my opinion about how those stories came to be told. When I write about that, I present it as opinion, which is what Sherry Jones did, presenting her interpretation of the story of A’isha as a novel, unlike Dr. Spellberg and others who present their interpretation of scripture as fact. I’m grateful for the firm scriptural foundation I gained from twelve years of fundamentalist Lutheran and Baptist school followed by Catholic college, but I believe God gifted His children with horse sense and free will so that His word would live and grow in our open minds.

We can’t debate the decision by Random House without knowing all the facts. (Full disclosure: I've done two books at RH imprints and had universally good experiences there.) It’s not clear if any “email blast” actually took place, and as of this writing, there’s been no report of actual physical threats. Only rumors of possible response. Though Dr. Spellberg and others trembled to the worst kneejerk conclusion about Muslim reaction (as if Muslims think and act with the homogeny of a synchronized swim team), the initial response to Amanullah’s email simply called for web community members to educate themselves and raise their voices.

Unfortunately, they and Dr. Spellberg extended that to include the stifling of someone else’s voice, zealously contending that we should all defer to that which they hold sacred. But to a novelist, what could be more sacred than freedom of thought and expression?

Update 10/28/09 Reflections on a firestorm (3 Questions for Sherry Jones, author of "The Sword of Medina")

The Jewel of Medina controversy

Why did Random House suddenly cancel publication of The Jewel of Medina by Sherry Jones?

From "You Still Can't Write About Muhammad" by Asra Q. Nomani, a former Wall Street Journal reporter and author of Standing Alone: An American Woman's Struggle for the Soul of Islam (HarperOne, 2006):

In April, looking for endorsements, Random House sent galleys to writers and scholars, including Denise Spellberg, an associate professor of Islamic history at the University of Texas in Austin. Ms. Jones put her on the list because she read Ms. Spellberg's book, "Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past: The Legacy of 'A'isha Bint Abi Bakr."

But Ms. Spellberg wasn't a fan of Ms. Jones's book. On April 30, Shahed Amanullah, a guest lecturer in Ms. Spellberg's classes and the editor of a popular Muslim Web site, got a frantic call from her. "She was upset," Mr. Amanullah recalls. He says Ms. Spellberg told him the novel "made fun of Muslims and their history," and asked him to warn Muslims...

On a May 21 conference call, Random House executive Elizabeth McGuire told the author and her agent that the publishing house had decided to indefinitely postpone publication of the novel for "fear of a possible terrorist threat from extremist Muslims" and concern for "the safety and security of the Random House building and employees."

Blogworld started buzzing with the story. Lots of sympathy for Sherry and scorn for Dr. Spellberg, who responded in a letter to the WSJ today:

As a historian invited to "comment" on the book by its Random House editor at the author's express request, I objected strenuously to the claim that "The Jewel of Medina" was "extensively researched," as stated on the book jacket. As an expert on Aisha's life, I felt it was my professional responsibility to counter this novel's fallacious representation of a very real woman's life. The author and the press brought me into a process, and I used my scholarly expertise to assess the novel. It was in that same professional capacity that I felt it my duty to warn the press of the novel's potential to provoke anger among some Muslims.

I'm still processing what I want to say about this. I'll post my thoughts tomorrow, and I hope others will join the dialogue on this event, which is disturbing on so many levels.