THANK YOU FOR LEAVING A COMMENT IF YOU'RE READING! LOVE AND THANKS TO ALL MY READERS!
The all new 50 Books Challenge!
Title: Hour of the Witch by Chris Bohjalian
Details: Copyright 2021, Random House
Synopsis (By Way of Front Flap): "A young Puritan woman— faithful, resourceful, but afraid of the demons that dog her soul— plots her escape from a violent marriage in this riveting and propulsive novel historical thriller from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Flight Attendant.
Boston, 1662. Mary Deerfield is twenty-four-years-old. Her skin is porcelain, her eyes delft blue, and in England she might have had many suitors. But here in the New World, amid this community of saints, Mary is the second wife of Thomas Deerfield, a man as cruel as he is powerful. When Thomas, prone to drunken rage, drives a three-tined fork into the back of Mary's hand, she resolves that she must divorce him to save her life. But in a world where every neighbor is watching for signs of the devil, a woman like Mary— a woman who harbors secret desires and finds it difficult to tolerate the brazen hypocrisy of so many men in the colony— soon becomes herself the object of suspicion and rumor. When tainted objects are discovered buried in Mary's garden, when a boy she has treated with herbs and simples dies, and when their servant girl runs screaming in fright from her home, Mary must fight to not only escape her marriage, but also the gallows. A twisting, tightly plotted novel of historical suspense from one of our greatest storytellers, Hour of the Witch is a timely and terrifying story of socially sanctioned brutality and the original American witch hunt."
Why I Wanted to Read It: Last year was a big year for Witch books, and this year has been no different!
How I Liked It:
ALSO, MILD SPOILERS AHEAD.
We have certain ideas about certain eras, that's for sure. But not just books written in certain eras, books about certain eras. Some, as I've mentioned, are evergreen, especially the Salem Witch trials and other witch trials of the same period. We have certain expectations about books written about these periods to the point that they're probably tropes. You're going to expect, say, that a book about the late 1960s is going to play on the "hippie" culture of the period and the sense of revolution and youthful idealism, for better or for worse. So what does all of that have to do with a book that takes place in the 1660s? We'll see!
But first, poor Mary Deerfield. Youngest child of a wealthy merchant, she and her parents headed to the New World from England (leaving her successful brothers and their families behind) when she was still a girl, and Mary was married off at nineteen to a respectable businessman old enough to be her father (although he's not quite as wealthy), drunken scumbag Thomas Deerfield, who is careful to keep his drunkenness not excessive in public or in front of the Deerfield's indentured servant Catherine and to keep a respectable public appearance, but whose bruises and injuries he's sometimes not careful about leaving behind on his wife. Five years of marriage later, Mary still has no children to make up for the fact her husband beats her regularly and it's getting more regular. All Mary has is finishing herself off after enduring Thomas's nightly activities and eying good-looking men in town, including her son-in-law, the husband of Deerfield's adult daughter from his first marriage (his first wife died by a snapped neck due to "a wild horse" according to him and the version the town believes), the mysterious Peregrine, present in Mary's life but seeming to hide secrets.
Trouble hits a high note when Mary's father imports three-tined forks into the colonies (all the rage in England!). Mary finds forks and a pestle planted outside of their home-- sure signs of witchcraft, but her servant Catherine denies any involvement. Mary goes to rebury the objects at night, and is discovered by Catherine, who accuses her of witchcraft and of killing her brother, to whom Mary ministered weeks before, by magic. Catherine runs to the neighbors and Mary's husband stabs her through the hand with a three-tined fork. The next day Mary flees to her parents and makes it clear she wants a divorce. Horrified as they are, they take her in and try to help, although Mary is sure they don't want her to divorce her husband (an unmarried woman is a sure sign of a witch) and are taking steps to sabotage her petition.
Meanwhile, an attractive nephew of one of Mary's father's merchant friends, Henry Simmons, turns up and takes a shine to Mary and she dares to imagine a life with him, maybe.
But then Mary's petition for divorce is declined and she's lumped back with her abusive husband and annoying, scheming servant who has an eye on Mary's husband. Mary's contemplates taking her own life, she's so distraught, before a better idea prevails.
Mary visits a cunning woman with whom she'd been acquainted before (and whom she'd avoided since, based on suspicions of witchcraft) when looking for herbal remedies for her lack of children, one of her only friends, Constance Winston. She wants to poison her husband and she needs help. Constance will help only if it's Mary's abusive husband and gives Mary good advice: seek out a poor family that the church is trying to save as both a great cover for innocence and also the fact the wife can secure the poison (the wife and her husband are friends of Constance). Mary convinces the reverend attending that she has accepted her lack of a divorce as well as her barrenness and wants to help the children of the poor family. Once there, Mary manages to convince the mother to trade the poison for supplies for her children (warm boots and winter wear) and things get underway.
Mary is all set to poison her husband and set her servant up to take the blame, emptying the flask into his drink and planting the bottle in her servant's things when she struck with conscience and knocks over his glass, saving his life. She decides instead to fake her own suicide (leaving a note for her husband to throw him off the trail) and run off with Henry, with whom she's shared a kiss (witnessed by her parents' servant, Henry takes the blame and a public whipping), and several clandestine confidences and pledges of love. Unfortunately, as she's saying her discreet goodbyes to friends as she prepares to steal off to a new life, Mary is accused of witchcraft and arrested.
Mary goes on a trial a second time and is found guilty and sentenced to death. But then, all sorts of secrets are revealed and there's too many plot twists to name. The book ends with an epilogue about the fates of several characters.
If you read this blog for a bit, you'll know I don't have a great track record with Witch-hunting books. As a whole, the witch trials are used constantly as some sort of political statement for the current culture, thus the expression "witch-hunt". So for what current political issue is this witch-hunt?
Interestingly? It's not really about that, at least not overtly.
I know; I was surprised, too.
It's a very well-executed thriller and whodoneit (who is the "witch" in our midst? Who is going after Mary? And why?) with a lot of twists and turns and the author has a way of unraveling all of it without it being too clear that's what's happening. The setting is rich, the pacing is perfect, and the author has a nice middle ground with the dialogue with having it sound enough seventeenth century English but still understandable to a modern reader.
So if you've read even a couple books about the Witch Trials, you're expecting this to take a turn somewhere and poor tragic Mary Deerfield is to be sent to her death tragically and totally needlessly, and isn't that just like [insert current political/social situation]? And that's just it: Mary is indeed innocent of witchcraft (by the way, if you're wondering what kind of witchcraft this is, it's purely of the "fictional Puritan suspicion" variety, existing only in the fevered imaginations of the townsfolk), but she's not entirely innocent of actual crimes both of their restrictive cultlike faith (she feels a bite of lust both eyeing the goodlooking men working on the dock as well as her "son"-in-law) and generally (she plots to murder to her husband and frame her trouble-making servant for his murder). And that makes it far more fascinating! Mary has interests and plans and agency (in her thoughts and desires if not in her culture) and isn't just a collapsible character.
The book isn't without its flaws: the book arguably at times falls very briefly victim to male authoring (as in spending time lingering over the attractiveness or not of its female characters and also a Puritan woman taking a rather relaxed attitude towards masturbation seems somewhat unlikely) but as a whole, it's a satisfying, deeply engaging thriller with a satisfying, deeply engaging ending.
I realize this book isn't the first of its kind (although it's among the better executed) by any measure. That kind being a book that goes against the tropes of its depicted time period and the accompanying assumptions we have about said period due to how it's consistently treated in fiction. But it makes a great argument for it being a continuing series (perhaps the Victorian era not being a more quaint, restrictive time in all instances? The late '60s/early '70s not being a boon to the zeitgeist which did not include everyone?), particularly if they're as well crafted as this book.
Notable:
"Prithee," Peregrine said. "I have seen the way that my husband looks at thee. I know thy body has been unchanged by childbirth. Do what thou must in regard to my father. But be wary of my husband. He, too, has frailties." (pg 163)
Did people think bodies were permanently changed (as far as sexual attractiveness) by childbirth then? Absolutely. Do I think modern contextuality has to exist, particularly in a story set this far back? Absolutely again. Do I think a Puritan woman would comment on this even in private? Probably not.
So it doesn't justify the gross feeling it gave me, particularly when it doesn't need to exist to demonstrate that Mary's stepdaughter (who is her same age, remember) has noticed that her husband thinks Mary is sexually attractive.
________________________________________
"Only a petition for divorce?" Thomas barked, emphasizing the first word sarcastically. "Thou makest it sound but a dispute over the price of bag of cornmeal! It is thy daughter's life-- and mine! It is our reputations. And, yes, Priscilla, thou knowest well it could be about thy daughter's very survival if she doesn't tread carefully through the swamp of the Town House and the vipers in their black robes." (pg 167)
Why not put "only" in italics, rather than "emphasizing the first word sarcastically"?
See, less cumbersome words.
________________________________________
"So, thou canst offer absolutely no motivation for Mary's decision to return to her parents that morning?"
"None. Have I not told thee that? Have I not made that clear? My attorney says that the remedy for slander is a public retraction. Perhaps I should be filing a petition of my own demanding that Mary retract her charges that even once I have behaved with such low regard that I would strike her."(pg 180)
Not to say every asshole behavior sounds like a disgraced former President, lest I sound like a certain author, but damn, that is who is sounds like, and he has domestic violence accusations of his own.
________________________________________
John Eliot was not tall but he was massive: he was round like a pumpkin, and his face was a plump almond with a mustache that he waxed into curlicue tips. He was fifty-eight years old, but his hair-- though streaked with white-- was lush and thick and hadn't begun to recede. He parted it perfectly in the middle, and it fell in two waves down the sides of his face to his shoulders. His eyes were feminine and kind, and he rose from behind his desk when Mary entered his study, guided there by an indentured servant no more than fifteen who was, like her master, portly and attractive. (pg 271)
"Feminine?"
________________________________________
"'Tis the only way we can have a future together," she said, cutting him off. "Dost thou trust me?"
"The psalms suggest we trust God."
She felt a spike of fear that she had lost him-- that he doubted here. But then he arched an eyebrow and smiled. "But, in this case," he continued, "I am comfortable putting my trust in a goddess." (pg 295)
Really not expecting to hear goddess comparisons in this way in a book about the Witch Trials, but I have no objections (particularly given this particular character).
________________________________________
"Thou wilt be feared as most potent. They will believe that in their lifetime they were indeed present for the hour of the witch." (pg 395)
And we have a title!
Final Grade: A
No comments:
Post a Comment