The Book of Esther has been the source of numer­ous inter­pre­ta­tions and reimag­in­ings. JT Waldman’s Megillat Esther: the Graph­ic Tale, reis­sued with new col­or illus­tra­tions, is a com­plex dia­logue with the ancient sto­ry. Tak­ing the form of a bold con­fronta­tion, this dual text com­bines the megillah itself with Tal­mu­dic com­men­tary and mod­ern ​“inter­ludes” that employ humor, irony, and irrev­er­ence leav­ened by awe. Wald­man has cre­at­ed a graph­ic nov­el in which the Jew­ish response to the threat of anni­hi­la­tion is root­ed in Torah, and embod­ied in a fear­less woman who tran­scends the gen­der roles that have defined her life. As Jere­my Dauber writes in his insight­ful after­word, Wald­man, like the great Jew­ish comics artist Will Eis­ner, is ​“both hon­or­ing and refus­ing fideli­ty” in his inno­v­a­tive work.

On the cov­er, Esther appears as a war­rior, crowned by the let­ter aleph, which begins her name. The book rejects an anachro­nis­tic read­ing of Esther as a mod­ern fem­i­nist, instead empha­siz­ing how she con­verts fear and rage into action, con­stant­ly sub­vert­ing her assigned roles. A vul­ner­a­ble orphan who first becomes a ward of her cousin, Mordechai, and lat­er the wife of a fool­ish king who is eas­i­ly manip­u­lat­ed, she under­stands the inevitabil­i­ty of her fate. By the time Esther, hear­ing Mordechai’s instruc­tions to approach King Achashverosh, declares, ​“if I die, I die,” read­ers believe that her unyield­ing sense of pow­er will make that out­come unlikely.

The nov­el opens from left to right. At the cru­cial turn­ing point when the Jews’ fate demands resis­tance, the text appears upside down and requires read­ing in the reverse direc­tion. The fes­ti­val of Purim itself embod­ies the over­turn­ing of norms; Wald­man extends that rad­i­cal impulse to the book itself. From the begin­ning, gen­der roles are rein­vent­ed as rad­i­cal tools. When Achashverosh shows con­tempt for women by dis­miss­ing his assertive wife, Vashti, his min­is­ters empha­size how her dis­obe­di­ence will become a threat­en­ing mod­el for all women, who will feel encour­aged to dis­obey their hus­bands. Esther wins a degrad­ing beau­ty con­test to become the poten­tial­ly unfor­tu­nate next wife, but Waldman’s vision of her as a mus­cu­lar woman with promi­nent fea­tures mocks the king’s misog­y­ny. No amount of per­fume or groom­ing in the women’s quar­ters will dimin­ish her humanity.

In ​“inter­lude” sec­tions that appear through­out the sto­ry, Wald­man alludes to rab­binic com­men­tary on Esther’s lin­eage and the sig­nif­i­cance of her con­nec­tions to the bib­li­cal Joseph. Both had dual iden­ti­ties and names, as they served roy­al­ty who had the pow­er to destroy their peo­ple. Wald­man inter­weaves past and present. In a ​“Mes­si­ah for the Day!” spec­ta­cle, the mas­ter of cer­e­monies calls on con­tes­tants to decide whether the mes­si­ah will descend from the House of Joseph or the House of David. In a lat­er ​“inter­lude,” from the sec­ond half of the book, the prophet Ezekiel empha­sizes the uni­ty that God will require in order to be one nation. A frus­trat­ed nar­ra­tor asks him, ​“What are you talk­ing about, Ezekiel. I’m try­ing to fin­ish telling Megillat Esther,” but Wald­man has estab­lished how Esther’s tri­umph over Haman reflects that ide­al of Jew­ish peoplehood.