A Novel About the Spanish Inquisition

Beg to Differ with Mona Charen

The Bulwark

News, Politics, News Commentary

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 23 June 2025

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Linda Chavez joined Mona Charen to discuss her debut novel The Silver Candlesticks, inspired by a personal revelation during an appearance on Finding Your Roots that her ancestors were secret Jews persecuted during the Spanish Inquisition. The novel explores themes of religious identity, repression, and survival, drawing on her family's history in Spain and the New World, as well as her own experience converting to Judaism. Their conversation also delved into parallels between historical persecution and contemporary immigration policies, warning against rising authoritarianism in the U.S.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Rural communities are being squeezed from every side.
0:05.0	From rising health care costs to crumbling hospitals,
0:08.0	from attacks on public schools, to the fight for paid family and medical leave.
0:13.0	Farmers and small businesses are reeling from the trade war,
0:18.0	and now Project 2025 is back, with a plan to finish what Elon Musk started.
0:24.8	Trump and the Republicans won rural votes, then turn their backs on us.
0:30.8	Join the One Country Project for the Rural Progress Summit, July 8 through the 10th.
0:36.8	This free virtual event brings together leaders
0:39.9	like Senator Heidi Highcamp, Secretary Pete Buttigieg,
0:43.9	Governor Andy Beshear and others
0:46.0	for real talk and real solutions.
0:49.2	Together we'll tackle the most urgent issues
0:52.4	facing rural America.
0:54.1	Register today or learn more at RuralProgress.com. tackle the most urgent issues facing rural America.
0:58.0	Register today or learn more at RuralProgress.com.
1:07.2	Welcome to the Mona Charridge Show. I am delighted today to welcome my friend and former beg-to-differ colleague Linda Chavez,
1:14.6	because we are celebrating the publication of Linda's first full-length novel, The Silver Candlesticks.
1:23.2	Linda, congratulations on this great new book, which I finished on the plane ride home from France just the other day.
1:34.6	So I wanted to ask you before we get into it, you have the most amazing backstory about, of anybody that I can think of for why you chose to write this book.
1:52.5	So why don't we start there?
1:54.9	What is it about you that made you say, I want to write a book about the Spanish Inquisition,
1:59.7	which most of us these days only think of, you know, Lanti Python.
	...

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