The Dovekeepers was published by Scribner in 2011. Four women tend the doves in the fortress of Masada during the Roman siege of 73 CE. Each narrates her story: how she came to Masada, what she lost, and what she carries. Yael, a warrior’s daughter, fled Jerusalem’s destruction. Revka, a baker’s wife, watched her daughter raped by Roman soldiers. Aziza, raised as a warrior disguised as a man, must choose between survival and identity. Shirah, the “Witch of Moab,” practices the old magic that Judaism has forbidden.
Hoffman spent five years researching the novel — studying the archaeology of Masada, the botany of the Judean desert, first-century Jewish domestic life, and the herbal medicine and folk magic that persisted alongside rabbinical Judaism. The dovecote (where doves were raised for Temple sacrifice) provides both the novel’s title and its central metaphor: women tending life in a place dedicated to death.
The novel ends with Masada’s fall — the famous mass suicide (or murder, depending on the account) — but Hoffman’s four women survive. Their survival is historically plausible (Josephus records that women and children were found alive) and thematically necessary: the novel insists that women’s lives are worth recording even when history records only men’s deaths.
Collecting The Dovekeepers
First edition (Scribner, New York, 2011): Hardcover with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $20–$50
- Very good/very good: $10–$20