SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Sometimes, there are second chances in literature. Charles Dickens' Fagin, the central scoundrel in his 1838 novel "Oliver Twist," leads a crime ring that exploits hungry orphans to rob unsuspecting Londoners. Fagin sings in "Oliver!," the musical inspired by "Oliver Twist."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "OLIVER!")
RON MOODY: (As Fagin, singing) In this life, one thing counts. In the bank, large amounts. I'm afraid these don't grow on trees. You got to pick a pocket or two. You got to pick a pocket or two, boys. You got to pick a pocket or two.
SIMON: That's Ron Moody in the 1968 film. His portrayal and Dickens' own novel present Fagin as calculating, miserly and cruel, depictions that have often been accused of being antisemitic. But what made Fagin who he was? Allison Epstein's new novel gives us Jacob Fagin from the age of 6 growing up in grimy London slums, what he does to get by, and what he becomes. Her new novel, "Fagin The Thief." And Allison Epstein joins us from the studios of WBEZ in Chicago. Thank you so much for being with us.
ALLISON EPSTEIN: Thank you so much for having me.
SIMON: Why did you want to give this almost signature rapscallion a backstory?
EPSTEIN: Well, I'm glad we started with the clip of Ron Moody, actually. That was my introduction to the character of Fagin. And then as I got old enough to read the actual "Oliver Twist," I very quickly realized this is a very different kind of character in the Dickens novel than in the musical. It's a two-dimensional stereotypical portrayal without question, but there's still something alive and interesting about him in a way that I just didn't want to let go of.
SIMON: Yeah. Tell us about this small enclave of Stepney in London where he grew up.
EPSTEIN: That's one thing that Dickens really never talks about in "Oliver Twist" is where does Fagin come from? He just appears out of a cave in the eastern side of London. And I really had to think, you know, where would a person like that grow up? Where would a person like that come from? And as I was doing research, there were little enclaves of Jewish families that would settle in London as they would emigrate. And they kind of would stick together. And I was just really in love with that idea of a small culture kind of keeping its own sense of togetherness.
SIMON: There's a very vivid scene in which young Jacob sees a man hanged for being a thief, and his mother wants him to see it. Why?
EPSTEIN: In the novel, she's pretty convinced that that's the road that he's on for his trajectory. In my novel, I imagine that Jacob Fagin's father was a thief as well, and he was hanged for thieving, which was, of course, very common at that time. And it seemed like it was a fate that was coming for my character of Fagin sort of from the moment he was born. And his mother, of course, sees that coming and tries to stop it. But as you can imagine, from where we know Fagin from, that's maybe not as successful as she had hoped.
SIMON: And she dies when Jacob is young. What does that leave him? What are his options in life?
EPSTEIN: She is the most important person in his life, Jacob's mother. And once she passes away, he really is standing sort of on the precipice of the rest of his life, and there's no one next to him to help him decide where does he go next. So the most important thing for him becomes survival. What do I have to do today to make sure that I am alive to see tomorrow?
SIMON: Let me ask you - something you address in the afterward - is Dickens' original portrayal of Fagin so grotesquely antisemitic that even Dickens regretted it?
EPSTEIN: He did, eventually. It took him some time. The novel was published originally in the 1830s, and it was, of course, serialized. As the novel wrapped up, he received a letter from a Jewish woman from London who was sort of taking him to task for his portrayal of Fagin. She commented that, you know, Dickens is such a wonderful hero and champion of the oppressed, but at the same time, he seems to have no particular sympathy for the character of Fagin. He refers to him almost exclusively as the Jew. And Dickens, at first, kind of pushed back against that feedback. But to give him credit, the next time he came about to write a Jewish character in one of his novels, it was a very different portrayal, let's say, than how he approached Fagin.
SIMON: And I'm interested in - dare I call it - this dynamic. Fagin - Jacob Fagin settles in an abandoned building that becomes his criminal headquarters but also a kind of refuge for children like him, right?
EPSTEIN: Yeah. That was something that was important to me as I was working on a retelling of the original, to think about sort of in a different way because, of course, in Dickens' portrayal of Fagin, he's always kind of portrayed as a child snatcher and an opportunist who sees these small, vulnerable children and takes advantage of them. And there's certainly still some of that. I wouldn't call my Fagin an altruist in any particular way. But I did think, you know, there's a reason that someone would go into a life like that. And one thing that seemed clear to me was part of it is identification. That's a life that he had and is trying to help others from - to not have.
SIMON: There's a short line in the novel that, among many others, stays with me in particular. And it is said of Fagin, quote - I'm quoting you, of course - "if he wants to eat today, he has work to do."
EPSTEIN: Yeah, there's no way around what has to happen. We can judge him and his court of thieves all we like for a life of lawlessness, but if they don't turn to that, what is the alternative? It doesn't seem possible to me that, you know, he would go out and get an ordinary job at a law firm and come back home at 5 p.m. to a nice home.
SIMON: Yeah.
EPSTEIN: That's not the path that he's on. That's not the opportunity he's being offered.
SIMON: Reimagining and rewriting Dickens, what do you come to appreciate and maybe not like about his work?
EPSTEIN: I am repeatedly impressed by how strong Dickens is of a storyteller and how much of a picture he can paint of the world that his readers both knew and didn't know. In "Oliver Twist," in particular, there's a real bifurcation between the kind of polite world of society that Dickens does give, but then this underworld that his readers would have been completely unfamiliar with, and Dickens brings it to life so well. He is the absolute perfect source for someone writing historical fiction because he gives you everything you need to understand the time that he's living in. It's brilliant.
SIMON: Yeah.
EPSTEIN: As far as what I don't like about Dickens - it's a funny question because I think sometimes we have a tendency for writers like Dickens or, you know, like a Shakespeare, we'll take them and put them on such a pedestal and a canon that we'll think this author is a genius and, therefore, this author could not have written a book that could be any better - it's already perfect the way that it is. And I think the more time I spent with Dickens for this project, the more I was able to see him as a working writer who was trying to figure things out, who would make a plot decision in a novel that maybe didn't make any sense or maybe that's not the route I would have chosen. There's things I disagree with in his writing, things I would do differently. That doesn't mean I write off Dickens as a fraud and an impostor, just that he's just out there making a living, doing an incredible job of it.
SIMON: Yeah. Allison Epstein, her new novel, "Fagin The Thief." Thank you so much for being with us.
EPSTEIN: Thanks so much for having me.
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