Adam and Eve. A well-known biblical story of a woman who disobeyed orders thus punishing women for eternity. Lilith. Adam’s more disobedient first wife was banished from Eden, becoming known as the mother of demons. The lesson here is that we should obey our husbands and remember our place as women-less than men. A narrative written by men to guide us in servitude. But is this the whole story? Are we not equal to men, if not divine for the life we may bring into the world? Is Lilith’s punishment for seeking knowledge truly justified?
For many, Lilith has become an empowering symbol of freedom for women. A demon reinterpreted as a deity, her story may run deeper than the pieces we are given. A book from her point of view might change our perspective on this figure.
‘Lilith,’ by Nikki Marmery, follows Lilith on her journey past Eden to find the Goddess Asherah-God’s wife and equal, Queen of Heaven-and restore balance to the world that has withered in her absence. A story of justice, oppression, and a dose of female rage, Lilith challenges the notion that women are an afterthought in the world’s creation.
This feminist retelling gripped me from the start, throwing me into a world plagued by patriarchal domination and her quest to right the wrongs cast upon women. It is a tale that has stuck with me long since reading it, strengthening my relationship with womanhood and my sisters around me.
Here is what Marmery has to say to these questions about ‘Lilith’:
How long have you been writing for? Did you always know you wanted to be an author?
I worked for many years as a financial journalist, so writing has always been my career. But the 2007/8 financial crisis hit just as I started my family, and the combination of the altered state of financial publishing and the demands of young children forced a change of direction.
I’d always wanted to write a book, so I started fiction-writing courses at the Faber Academy in London – more to find out if I could do it, than in the expectation of a new career. I had a project in mind – but it was a very slow process, as I only had a day a week to devote to writing. It took seven years to finish my first novel ‘On Wilder Seas,’ which was inspired by the true story of Maria, the only woman on board the Golden Hind during Sir Francis Drake’s circumnavigation of the world in the 16th century. Unfortunately, it was published in March 2020, in the same week that the covid lockdowns began in the UK. After long years dreaming of publication, my first book was published just as every bookshop in the country closed for several months.
I started writing my second novel in lockdown. ‘Lilith,’ the story of the mythological first woman, who is ousted from Paradise when she asserts her equality, is very much a novel of that strange time. It grew from all the big questions I found myself pondering as the world shut down: it’s about life and death; hierarchy and balance; the origins and costs of patriarchy; and humans’ relationships with each other and with the natural world.
What are some of your favorite books and authors?
I have always been an avid reader. I grew up loving the classics, particularly Dickens (‘David Copperfield’ is my favorite) and Hardy (‘Under the Greenwood Tree’ has a special place in my heart). I studied history at university but also took Russian literature courses and fell in love with Tolstoy (I prefer ‘War and Peace’ to ‘Anna Karenina’), the surrealist Ukrainian writer Gogol, and Bulgakov. When I was a teenager, my dad gave me a copy of ‘Slaughterhouse Five’ and I became an instant and lifelong Kurt Vonnegut fan; I reread ‘Timequake’ regularly. I love his cynicism, humor, and humanity.
When it comes to myths and the ancient world, I adore Robert Graves (especially ‘Count Belisarius’ and his peerless ‘The White Goddess’); Ursula Le Guin’s tale of Aeneas’s wife, ‘Lavinia,’ and Mary Renault, particularly ‘The Persian Boy,’ the second book in her brilliant Alexander trilogy. My favorite novels inspired, like ‘Lilith,’ by biblical myths, are Elizabeth Cook’s beautiful, poetic ‘Lux,’ about King David’s pursuit of Bathsheba, ‘Damascus’ by Christos Tsiolkas, and Anita Diamant’s ‘The Red Tent.’
But my absolute favorite writer of all time is Hilary Mantel. I came to her, like many others, with ‘Wolf Hall’ – and immediately devoured her backlist. I love everything she wrote, from the historical epics, especially ‘A Place of Greater Safety,’ to her wickedly funny contemporary novels, and her razor-sharp social commentary and essays. I was heartbroken when she died in 2022, far too soon.
What inspired you to write this story?
I wanted to write about the most powerful lie of all time: a myth finalized in its current form about 2,500 years ago, which acquired the weight of religion to enshrine misogyny and exploitation of the natural world as divine law. This is the myth of biblical Genesis, in which a Father creates all life without a Mother; declares Man, made in His own image, as the pinnacle of creation – and Woman as an afterthought; his helpmeet. I wanted to write about the real-world consequences of this myth, in which a male God explicitly gives Man dominion over Woman, and the entire natural world. For me, these two hierarchies are everything that is wrong with our world. They are the foundation of the entirety of Western culture; the origin story of every European power that would come to dominate more than 80% of the planet.
I wanted to remind readers that even though few people today believe in the veracity of this myth, its impact on the modern world is immeasurable. The world we live in our systems of government, law, education, economies, philosophies, religions, art, literature – everything we know! – was created by men who did believe in their God-ordained mastery, who as a consequence denied women power, education, voice, and freedom for millennia. I wanted to write about something so ingrained in our culture we rarely question it, but which is very revealing: why do we have a Divine Father, but no Mother?
“Lilith” is thoroughly researched, apparent in its references and storytelling. What was this process like for you? How did it influence your approach to writing Lilith’s character?
Writing for me is a way to explore something that fascinates me, so research is a huge part of my process. It is a huge privilege to spend years learning about something that I am curious about; the story is my way of making sense of what I’ve learned. I read around my subject for months or even years before I write a single word: in the case of ‘Lilith’, the preparation was decades in the making, as it’s about things I’ve been thinking about all my life: the roots of gender inequality; the rise of patriarchy and its consequences; the demise of female divinity; the echoes of historical reality in ancient myths.
So, when I did start writing, Lilith felt fully formed. The early scenes in the book, set in Eden, came to me like visions: her initial love and delight in Adam, her fury as he started trying to control her; her sense of freedom and power when she escapes.
As I progressed, I realized Lilith’s fury is my fury – is every woman’s fury! – at the realization that comes to us all: that the world we live in was made by men, for men; in which women’s participation, voice, and power were deliberately limited; in which women’s experiences, perspectives, beliefs and spirituality were forcibly suppressed.
What would you like your audience to take away from Lilith’s tale?
Many readers tell me they feel their eyes have been opened reading ‘Lilith,’ and that is the best thing for me to hear. My aim was to draw attention to the erasure of female power and divinity, and the consequences for women in the real world for millennia. I’d like readers to think about how damaging the concept of a sole, male god is for women; how it instantly positions man as the ‘natural’ authority, the default human, and other women, dehumanizes them in relation to men, and denotes their inferiority. I’d like readers to consider how the myth of male supremacy ordained by a male god was used throughout history to keep women in their place: uneducated, and unheard – and to examine the legacies of that belief we are still living with today.
The secondary theme of the book, which dovetails with the notion of man’s rule over woman, is the idea that mankind is the pinnacle of creation; that the natural world is man’s to rule, possess, and control – or as God commands in Genesis: “Fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”
For me, this is the start of the path leading to the ecological catastrophe we are facing today. For thousands of years before men ever dreamed of a sole, male god, ancient people thought of the earth itself as divine: the very body of the Great Mother, which brought forth new life, nurtured and sustained. I’m not advocating a return to fertility-based religion or sacrificing to ensure the fecundity of our crops again – but I think we should consider what was lost when we stopped thinking of the earth itself as holy, and instead something that is ours to subdue; when we began to think we were masters of the natural world and no longer a part of it; when we started imagining deities as authorities above the physical world, rather than manifestations of it.
What does womanhood mean to you?
For the overwhelming majority of recorded history, across much of the world, womanhood meant inferiority. In many times and places, it meant to be less than human – the literal property of fathers and husbands, to be disposed of as they saw fit. It meant being denied education and the vote, representation in government, equal hearing and standing in law; being barred from professions, from inheriting wealth and power; it meant being cloistered, hidden, and confined to the home. It meant being burned as a witch for such crimes as living alone, owning a cat, and gathering herbs.
My womanhood means being acutely aware of this history, of the legacies of oppression we are still living with, and of the women still enduring such injustices in other parts of the world. It means knowing how hard women fought (and are still fighting) for their rights; and how recent and fragile are the gains they have made. In my lifetime, it was legal for a man to rape his wife in the UK (and still is in 48 countries around the world); my mother’s generation needed male guarantors to borrow money or take out a mortgage. Bodily autonomy is the most important battleground for women’s rights around the world and it is under attack everywhere.
So for me, womanhood still means fighting to be seen as human. It means sisterhood because women have had to find non-physical ways to be strong. It means asserting the female perspective and writing stories that tell the truth about our inherent power and worth. It means reclaiming our bodies from male control and entitlement. It means challenging all forms of male supremacy until every woman in the world is free.
What’s next for you? Are you working on another novel?
There are three books I am itching to write – all set in the ancient world, all tangentially about female power. I’m currently researching all three, so it’s a question of waiting to discover which one takes over my mind and soul!
A beautifully written and deeply moving novel, ‘Lilith’ is a book I recommend to everyone. “This novel is illuminating, fascinating and important- a fierce and valuable addition to feminist myth-retellings that feels utterly original and much needed”(Jennifer Saint, Sunday Times best-selling author of ‘Ariadne’).
I recommend purchasing your copy of ‘Lilith’ at a local bookstore or the library. If you prefer reading on a device or enjoy audiobooks, Libby is a great source for finding free reading material. You can sign up with your library card on Libby and download the app.