The Third Daughter

I got the recommendation for The Third Daughter by Talia Carner from Renee's Reading Club on Facebook. Coincidentally, Talia Carner is a member. But that's neither here nor there. The historical fiction novel was highly recommended by many in the group and the idea intrigued me. Like "Fiddler on the Roof," which is based on Sholom Alechem's short story, Tevye, the Dairyman, The Third Daughter is based on another short story, The Man from Buenos Aires. 

In the late 1800s, when the pogroms in Eastern Europe were pretty horrific, there was a Jewish-run syndicate, tricking girls to leave Eastern Europe to travel to Buenos Aires to be forced into prostitution. They were effectively enslaved to their pimps and madams. This a a true thing and it went on for years.

The Third Daughter is the story of Batya. She and her father, the dairyman, her mother, and sister had just fled their shtetl when the met Reb Moskowitz, a gentleman who has returned from America to find a decent woman to marry and bring back to America with him. It didn't matter that Batya was just 14. He was going to take Batya with him to America and would marry her at 16. She would live a life of luxury. The parents, desperate, agree. They'd been trying to find a way to get to the father's brother in Pittsburgh, America. Little did they know that the America that Moskowitz was taking Batya to was Buenos Aires and that he was not the man he seemed to be.

The story, pretty gruesome to read at times, was gripping. It's based on an actual syndicate, Zwi Migdal. The entire time Batya is enslaved, she seeks a way to help her parents and sisters get out of Russia, even if it will cost her her happiness. It gives a good depiction of the different ways Jews were viewed in South America at that time.

I gave this novel 4 stars on goodreads.com.