A BIOGRAPHY OF JEZEBEL:

"Biography" of Jezebel mixes scripture, history and a vivid imagination

"Jezebel: The Untold Story
of the Bible's Harlot Queen"

by Lesley Hazleton

Doubleday, 258 pp., $24.95

With "Jezebel: The Untold Story of the Bible's Harlot Queen," Seattle author Lesley Hazleton again proves herself to be a writerly risk-taker. This former journalist — whose last book was titled "Mary: A Flesh-and-Blood Biography of the Virgin Mother" (Bloomsbury, 2004) — takes on subjects so obscured by time and contradictory religious beliefs as to make traditional biography all but impossible.

Hazleton has found a similar challenge in Jezebel, whose name, she says, is unfairly synonymous with an immoral, promiscuous female. The resulting book is one full of energetic switchbacks between history, imaginings, personal recollections of the Middle East, careful biblical translation and contemporary slang. ("Jezebel was framed, that much is certain.") Enjoyment of the book will rest squarely on the reader's comfort level with such sinuousness.

[...]

A timely release.