Fagin the Thief comes with content warnings for all sorts of sinister actions: abuse, death, swearing, and crime, including property theft. Yet readers may find themselves on the side of Jacob Fagin, the thief and Jew at the center of the crime ring, in this take on Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist.  

Author and U-M alum Allison Epstein, who lives in Chicago, will debut her third historical fiction novel at Literati Bookstore on Monday, March 3, at 6:30 pm. She returns to Literati after sharing her previous book, Let the Dead Bury the Dead, there as well.

The main character, Jacob Fagin, who prefers to go by his last name, takes to a life of crime like a fish to water and quickly learns the ropes. When he begins stealing, he is enamored with the opportunities that it provides:

Gold, jewelry, food, money, fine clothes—all of it parades before his mind’s eye, a dancing troupe of ghostly objects made animate by his own skill. He will have them. He will have everything.

Theft brings Fagin into contact with people, places, and things he could not have ever expected to encounter in Regency-era London, where the gap between the haves and have-nots is vast.

The novel goes backward and forward during Fagin’s life from age 11 in 1798 to his early 50s in 1838. Chapters look back at Jacob with his mother and cover the development of his career and efforts to train new young thieves, including the notorious Bill Sikes and Oliver Twist. Despite his mother’s care and admonishments, Fagin does not stop once he begins stealing. Yet, “An unfamiliar feeling twists through Jacob’s stomach, and it takes several moments before he identifies it as guilt.” He only wishes he did not have to worry about that: “A world with consequences. If he could cut those consequences to pieces with the knife, he would, never mind how bloody it became.” The threat of being caught never goes away. Fagin expects that when "they hang two nooses from the gallows at Newgate, one for Jacob and one for Bill, it will be nothing more than either of them deserves.” Consequences haunt his life of crime.

Aspects of Dickens’ Oliver Twist have not held up well, particularly the characterization of Fagin, and Epstein addresses these issues by recasting Fagin. She writes in her “Author’s Note” that, in Dickens’ novel, Fagin constitutes “one of the most famous antisemitic caricatures in English literature.” Reimagining Fagin offers the chance to see him in a new light. Epstein reflects, “No demographic is a reliable shorthand for what a person believes. The only way to find out is if you ask and listen.” She does just that—asks and listens—as she tells Fagin’s story.

The characters are embedded in their environment: the societies and neighborhoods of London. As Fagin faces the fallout from one of the crimes, he imagines what he wishes he had said to his comrade, Bill, who led that particular crime:

It’s the world, my friend, my dear boy, it’s the world that takes us by the collar and drags us forward because what use is an honest man, Bill, when that honest man is dead in a ditch, the point of life is to live it, that’s all I ever tried to teach you.

In our interview, Epstein and I talked about what justice would look like in the world of these characters.

Q: Fagin the Thief is your third historical fiction novel. What set you on the path to writing historical fiction?

A: I’ve been a historical fiction fan for as long as I can remember. It’s probably because of all the Dear America and Magic Tree House books I devoured as a kid. Or the fact that my dad taught high school U.S. history for 20 years and most of our family vacations included at least one historical plaque. Or the way I find research fun and want to make sure my characters are using historically accurate swear words. I think many people get turned off of history because it’s presented to them as a series of facts and dates and battle tactics, but to me, history is story, pure and simple. People have always been people, no matter how long ago they lived, and my favorite part about writing historical fiction is making the past feel current by seeing it through someone else’s eyes.

Q: Your author’s note discusses Fagin the Thief in relation to Oliver Twist. For readers who have not read either book, would you bill Fagin the Thief as a retelling of Dickens’ book or another way? Why?

A: I think of Fagin the Thief as taking place behind and around Oliver Twist, similar to the way Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead takes place behind and around Hamlet. Most of the events of Oliver Twist appear throughout my book, but Oliver himself is a minor character, and the majority of the novel explores what might have happened in the world of the original story before Oliver arrived on the scene. It’s less a retelling than a speculative answer to the question, “How might the characters Dickens introduced us to have come to be?”

Q: Ways that Fagin the Thief is distinct from Oliver Twist include the setting and plot changes. How did you make decisions about what to change or preserve?

A: I tried not to stray from the plot of Oliver Twist unless it was necessary, and when I did, it was usually because my characters had changed in such a way that the original plot no longer made sense. Dickens generally portrays Fagin, Bill, and Nancy as either purely bad or purely good, and while this helps make the moral of the story clear, I wanted to explore the shades of gray in each of them. As part of that process, some of the choices those characters make in the original didn’t ring true with how I understood them, so I altered some plot points slightly to match how my characters were more likely to behave. Other changes were mostly to keep the book focused. For example, the entire subplot about Oliver’s secret rich family is missing from Fagin the Thief because it’s Fagin’s story, and what does he care about some random child’s parentage? The other reason is because I find that part of Oliver Twist deeply boring, and I didn’t think most readers would miss it. Sorry to the one Rose Maylie fan out there.

Q: Fagin the Thief focuses on Jacob Fagin, who eeks out a living by stealing and training young boys to pick pockets. You also mention in the author’s note that Dickens was critiqued for his depiction of Fagin as a Jew. What did you learn from writing Fagin’s story? What do you want readers to observe about him?

A: What I hope readers will see from spending time with Fagin is how taking the time to understand someone’s circumstances can help you see the same set of facts in a different way. My Fagin is a thief and the ringleader of a gang of child pickpockets, just as the Fagin in Oliver Twist was. The difference between the two is why. Dickens’ Fagin is a thief because he’s a wicked, avaricious Jew capable only of evil. Jacob Fagin arrives more or less at the same place, but not because it’s in his nature: it’s because his background and personality and circumstances and talents and the prejudices of his world left him with no real option other than to become what he is. I find that once you deeply understand someone’s “why,” it’s difficult not to see them as human and worthy of respect, even if you still disagree with their opinions and choices.

Q: Fagin doubts other people, which serves as a protection mechanism in his line of work. We learn early on that "he’s never trusted anyone with anything, and this attitude has seen him reach the age of fifty-one with all his limbs still attached.” Do you think Fagin is likable despite his pickpocketing and facade? Do you want the reader to have sympathy for him?  

A: Fagin is the worst, and I like him very much! This was true for me even in Oliver Twist: Dickens’ Fagin is an antisemitic caricature of evil, and at the same time he’s a lively, funny, fascinating character who’s smarter than everyone else in the story and has held my attention for decades. I wanted my version to strip out the harmful stereotype and explore new corners of his personality, but it was important to me not to lose that entertaining messiness that attracted me in the first place.

I certainly don’t expect readers to think of my Fagin as a good person: he’s cowardly, selfish, angry, cruel at times, and unquestionably a terrible influence on the people around him. He needs therapy more than maybe any character I’ve ever written. But I’ve spent so much time with him—and see so much of myself in him—that I feel a deep affection for him despite all his faults, and I’m hopeful readers will walk away with a similar feeling.

Q: For years and years, Fagin maintains his clean record by not getting caught. He must be constantly alert and thus he also worries constantly. The possibility of being thrown into prison or put to death by the gallows hovers closely. Do you ever wish for different outcomes for Fagin and Bill, or do you think justice was served?

A: I think the question of justice is a complicated one. In the literal sense, their stories are the definition of justice being served: they break laws, the justice system assigns the penalties associated with those laws. But an actual just outcome for Fagin and Bill would require a complete overhaul of their world. If their stories were just, they would have the resources and education and social support to build a meaningful life within the law, without society predetermining their fates and closing off all other paths. Real justice would look like breaking down the class system, eliminating prejudice and income inequality, and allowing them to start over. But that was never really on the table.

Q: One of the boys that Fagin trains grows up to be the infamous Bill Sikes. To say that Bill has anger issues is putting it lightly. Bill begins breaking into houses, a departure from Fagin’s training. He tells Fagin, “It’s a lark the things people think are safe just because there’s a door in front of them.” What did you research about theft in early nineteenth-century London to write this novel? Did you learn any surprising tricks that you included?

A: One of the best things about the Victorians is that they wrote everything down and loved a scandal, so I had plenty of primary sources about crime to work with. My number-one source was London Labor and the London Poor by Henry Mayhew, a 19th-century social reformer who published more than a thousand pages of observations about virtually every crime you can imagine. There are whole chapters dedicated to the specific kinds of glass-cutters a housebreaker would use to climb in through a skylight, or the way young women on buses would use their long shawls to hide their hands while they cut people’s purses. I also heavily researched period-accurate criminal slang, partly so I could have my characters use it and partly because it’s just so fun. Why say, “Run, that guy saw you pick his pocket” when you could say, “Cheese it, the cove bowled you out”?

Q: The novel jumps around in time. It begins when Fagin is older, and while well-established is not exactly the right word, he works with a group of thieves, has a squat that he calls home, and knows plenty of places to work. Chapters go back in time to cover his childhood with his mother, Leah, his own training in pickpocketing with Anthony Leftwich, his relationship with his trainees, and his home on Bell Court. How did you decide to have chapters set in earlier and later years instead of chronological? Did you write them chronologically and then reorder them, or did you let the story unfold and intersperse the backstories as you wrote?

A: I wanted to introduce my Fagin the same way Dickens introduces him: in his den in East London, at the moment when the Artful Dodger ushers in Oliver. That way, even for readers who haven’t read Oliver Twist in many years, we’re all starting from the same ground: we know where this character ends up, and the central question of the story becomes how he gets there. It felt right to return to the “present time” periodically while we follow Jacob’s life chronologically, and I largely wrote the novel in the order it’s in now. Other than going back to rewrite the first quarter of the book a few times, but that’s because my first drafts always take some trial and error. Jacob’s present is completely intertwined with his past, and I wanted to explore that structurally too.

Q: What is on your nightstand to read?

A: My last five-star read was Maddalena and the Dark by Julia Fine, which is a lush historical almost-horror about selling your soul to the sea in exchange for the chance to embrace your full self: highly recommend! Next up for me is Private Rites by Julia Armfield, a queer retelling of King Lear about three sisters cleaning out their father’s house after his death. It’s got all my favorite things packed into the blurb alone—Shakespeare, retellings, queer narratives, a shocking discovery in a will, spooky weather—so I’m looking forward to it.

Q: We started this interview talking about your writing. Is more historical fiction on the horizon for you? What are you writing next?

A: Historical fiction is such a broad genre with so many possibilities, and I don’t feel at all tired of it yet! I’m toying with a few ideas, and while I won’t get too much into either just yet, one’s inspired by a 14th-century nun and the other is about the 1903 Iroquois Theater fire in Chicago. Not a lot of overlap there, to put it mildly, so I’ve got to make up my mind before I get too into the research.

Martha Stuit is a former reporter and current librarian. 

Allison Epstein with discuss “Fagin the Thief" on Monday, March 3 at 6:30 pm at Literati Bookstore, 124 East Washington Street, Ann Arbor.