Hour of the Witch: A Novel (Vintage Contemporaries)
A sensational divorce trial in 17th-century Boston becomes a deadly witch hunt in Chris Bohjalian’s HOUR OF THE WITCH. Puritan Mary Deefield—faithful, resourceful, but afraid of the demons that dog her soul—plots her escape from a violent marriage in this timely and terrifying story of socially sanctioned brutality and the original American witch hunt, a thrilling New York Times bestseller from the author of The Flight Attendant.
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Community Reviews
This was the first book I've read by this author but will look for more by him. This story is set in Boston during the time of the Salem witch trials. The main character is trapped in a marriage with a husband that is abusing her. She sues for divorce and this is a humiliating process, described in great detail. The author sometimes uses more description than I would have liked but it was an interesting read over all.
Hour of the Witch a tour de force work of historical fiction -- an engrossing study of domestic abuse, divorce, societal pressures, and witchcraft, as well as a captivating legal thriller, with a final twist that is inventive, surprising, and extremely satisfying.
Author Chris Bohjalian masterfully sets the scene, convincingly recreating and transporting readers to 1662 Boston. The city's population is exploding as ships arrive from all over the world bringing goods. The Puritans drink beer, eat from trenchers, and do not use folks because they resemble pitchforks: "the devil's tines." Bohjalian found the fact that Puritans could be so afraid of forks one of the most fascinating aspects of their thought processes. So Mary's father is a businessman importing forks from Europe where they are just gaining favor, primarily among the nobility.
A fork is the weapon Thomas Deerfield uses to attack his young wife. Thomas is boorish, controlling, and cruel. Mary has thus far failed to conceive a child, a fact that leads to gossip and speculation among the townspeople, and fuels Thomas's verbal abuse. Puritan society is a patriarchy founded on religious beliefs, and Thomas is the worst example of the misogynistic world in which Mary exists. Women are to stay in their place, and those who don't suffer severe consequences. Thomas is also physically abusive, and his violent attacks upon Mary have escalated over time, growing increasingly savage.
Mary's mother gifts them eight silver forks, "each the size and rough shape of a spoon, . . . but Mary couldn't imagine what she was supposed to do with the forks. . . . She'd heard of these utensils with three tines and she knew they were tools of the Devil." Her mother insists that even people in Boston will use them because they "are not inducements from Satan; they are but gifts from thy parents."
But a fork does become the tool of a devil . . . named Thomas Deerfield. Mary accurately predicts that he will not tolerate having forks in his house. One morning Mary finds a pestle and two forks buried in the yard. Catherine, the Deerfields' servant, insists that Mary must have placed them there, and killed her brother, even though Mary tried to save him by providing "simples" (natural remedies such as herbs). She accuses Mary of being a witch. The commotion rouses Thomas who, at first, insists that Mary is "too simple to be a witch." But he decides to test Catherine's theory and in a harrowing fit of anger, picks up a fork and slams it, "tines down, into the bones in the back of her hand." At that point, Mary fully realizes that she is in grave danger and if she stays in the marriage Thomas will eventually kill her.
Thomas is not just a stereotypical bully. "He believes in his heart that he's looking out for his wife. He does it in ways that are obscene, cruel beyond belief," but in line with Puritan notions. He justifies his abuse, claiming that he inflicts it because he fears for Mary's immortal soul and, as her husband, has a responsibility to discipline her in order to save her from eternal damnation. He fears for his own social standing and reputation, as well. His behavior is sanctioned by a society that permits men to discipline their wives.
Mary determines "to do something incredibly rare." She resolves to divorce Thomas, "even if it subjects her to allegations of witchcraft."
Puritans were terrified of Satan, in part because "they had no explanations for certain life events and natural disasters." Mary is a beautiful, intelligent young woman, but she is modest. She accepts the societal constraints within which she must live -- men have dominion over women and she would be content within that familial structure. But that dominion cannot extend to being beaten by her husband. For a long time, she has been hiding the bruises and making up stories about how she has injured herself when it was impossible to conceal the effects of Thomas's fists striking her. Still, summoning strength and a sense of self-worth that she never knew she possessed, she finally stands up for herself. She reaches her limit and uses her voice to say "Enough!" She insists that she deserves to be released from a toxic relationship with a monster. Part of her motivation is the fact that she dreams of a life without Thomas in which she is loved and cherished by another man to whom she feels an increasingly irresistible attraction. She goes out of her way to encounter him, daring to spend time talking with a man who values her intellect. On top of that, Mary dares to maintain a friendship with Constance Winston, an older single woman who lives alone on the wrong side of town, and serves as a role model, mentor, confidante, and co-conspirator. She is an expert on simples and tried to help Mary become pregnant when, after three years of marriage, she still had not conceived a child. And Mary turns to her again when she is utterly desperate to escape her circumstances, a choice that could prove disastrous. That Mary will be labeled a witch becomes inevitable, in part due to her own actions.
The story is based partly on the first divorce in America on the ground of cruelty. There were five legal bases for divorce -- polygamy, desertion, adultery, impotence, and cruelty -- and thirty-one cases on record. One was on the ground of impotence, and only one was based on cruelty. Bohjalian pondered, "How much courage must it have taken in Puritan Boston for a woman to stand up against the stern men who formed the Court of Assistants and petition for divorce?" He imbued Mary, his protagonist, with that courage and unbreakable spirit.
The first part of the book is called "The Book of the Wife," with the second titled "The Book of the Witch." Although religion permeated every aspect of their daily lives, Puritan marriages were, surprisingly, deemed a civil, not sacred, covenant. For that reason, divorce was permitted and the wife was entitled to one-third of the marital estate. When Mary tells her parents that Thomas has abused her, they vow to protect her. Her father declares, "This won't stand. I'm appalled. Let us go see both a friend and a magistrate. . . . Mary and Thomas were married by a magistrate, and I will see to it that they are divorced by a magistrate." Mary's parents love their daughter, but, being good Puritans, they are responsible for having married her off to Thomas. They take her back into their home when she leaves Thomas and the divorce trial proceeds. But they fear for her safety. Obtaining a divorce proves to be anything but simple or uncomplicated. Mary soon becomes the target of a full-fledged witch hunt with her very life at stake.
Each chapter in the book is preceded by an excerpt of the testimony elicited during Mary's trial, a technique that heightens reader curiosity and ratchets up the tension. And the courtroom scenes are riveting and believable. Mary must convince a fourteen-member all-male panel of jurists that her account of marriage to Thomas is true and meets the legal standard of cruelty. Soon, Mary is embroiled in a second trial with few options left to her. At one point, a magistrate refers to her as "a nasty and sharp-tongued woman," a reference Bohjalian is certain will not be lost on his readers. He wanted the story to be contemporary and happened to be writing it during the ill-fated Supreme Court confirmation hearing for Brett Kavanaugh.
Bohjolian effectively tells the story utilizing the language of the time period from Mary's vantage point. He compassionately reveals her thought processes, desires, and fears in the hope that his readers will take Mary into their hearts. It is impossible not to, because she is a sympathetic character with whom female readers, in particular those who have experienced differential treatment because of their gender, will readily empathize. Her parents are equally endearing, and their struggle to balance their realistic assessment of Mary's predicament against their desire to see their beloved child healthy and happy is both engrossing and heartrending. Every supporting character, including Thomas's daughter Peregrine and Constance, the woman who dares defy societal conventions, is fully imagined and intriguing.
Hour of the Witch is an absorbing and entertaining fictional tale. But it is also much more. It is the contemporary tale Bohjalian sought to create and "among the timeliest" he has ever penned. The parallels between 1662 Boston and America in the #MeToo era are inescapable and thought-provoking. Bohjalian hopes readers will ask themselves, "Oh, my god, how have we not come further in the last three hundred and fifty years?" Indeed.
Hour of the Witch is one of the best books of 2021, and destined to be deemed a classic.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Readers' Copy of the book.
Author Chris Bohjalian masterfully sets the scene, convincingly recreating and transporting readers to 1662 Boston. The city's population is exploding as ships arrive from all over the world bringing goods. The Puritans drink beer, eat from trenchers, and do not use folks because they resemble pitchforks: "the devil's tines." Bohjalian found the fact that Puritans could be so afraid of forks one of the most fascinating aspects of their thought processes. So Mary's father is a businessman importing forks from Europe where they are just gaining favor, primarily among the nobility.
A fork is the weapon Thomas Deerfield uses to attack his young wife. Thomas is boorish, controlling, and cruel. Mary has thus far failed to conceive a child, a fact that leads to gossip and speculation among the townspeople, and fuels Thomas's verbal abuse. Puritan society is a patriarchy founded on religious beliefs, and Thomas is the worst example of the misogynistic world in which Mary exists. Women are to stay in their place, and those who don't suffer severe consequences. Thomas is also physically abusive, and his violent attacks upon Mary have escalated over time, growing increasingly savage.
Mary's mother gifts them eight silver forks, "each the size and rough shape of a spoon, . . . but Mary couldn't imagine what she was supposed to do with the forks. . . . She'd heard of these utensils with three tines and she knew they were tools of the Devil." Her mother insists that even people in Boston will use them because they "are not inducements from Satan; they are but gifts from thy parents."
But a fork does become the tool of a devil . . . named Thomas Deerfield. Mary accurately predicts that he will not tolerate having forks in his house. One morning Mary finds a pestle and two forks buried in the yard. Catherine, the Deerfields' servant, insists that Mary must have placed them there, and killed her brother, even though Mary tried to save him by providing "simples" (natural remedies such as herbs). She accuses Mary of being a witch. The commotion rouses Thomas who, at first, insists that Mary is "too simple to be a witch." But he decides to test Catherine's theory and in a harrowing fit of anger, picks up a fork and slams it, "tines down, into the bones in the back of her hand." At that point, Mary fully realizes that she is in grave danger and if she stays in the marriage Thomas will eventually kill her.
Thomas is not just a stereotypical bully. "He believes in his heart that he's looking out for his wife. He does it in ways that are obscene, cruel beyond belief," but in line with Puritan notions. He justifies his abuse, claiming that he inflicts it because he fears for Mary's immortal soul and, as her husband, has a responsibility to discipline her in order to save her from eternal damnation. He fears for his own social standing and reputation, as well. His behavior is sanctioned by a society that permits men to discipline their wives.
Mary determines "to do something incredibly rare." She resolves to divorce Thomas, "even if it subjects her to allegations of witchcraft."
Puritans were terrified of Satan, in part because "they had no explanations for certain life events and natural disasters." Mary is a beautiful, intelligent young woman, but she is modest. She accepts the societal constraints within which she must live -- men have dominion over women and she would be content within that familial structure. But that dominion cannot extend to being beaten by her husband. For a long time, she has been hiding the bruises and making up stories about how she has injured herself when it was impossible to conceal the effects of Thomas's fists striking her. Still, summoning strength and a sense of self-worth that she never knew she possessed, she finally stands up for herself. She reaches her limit and uses her voice to say "Enough!" She insists that she deserves to be released from a toxic relationship with a monster. Part of her motivation is the fact that she dreams of a life without Thomas in which she is loved and cherished by another man to whom she feels an increasingly irresistible attraction. She goes out of her way to encounter him, daring to spend time talking with a man who values her intellect. On top of that, Mary dares to maintain a friendship with Constance Winston, an older single woman who lives alone on the wrong side of town, and serves as a role model, mentor, confidante, and co-conspirator. She is an expert on simples and tried to help Mary become pregnant when, after three years of marriage, she still had not conceived a child. And Mary turns to her again when she is utterly desperate to escape her circumstances, a choice that could prove disastrous. That Mary will be labeled a witch becomes inevitable, in part due to her own actions.
The story is based partly on the first divorce in America on the ground of cruelty. There were five legal bases for divorce -- polygamy, desertion, adultery, impotence, and cruelty -- and thirty-one cases on record. One was on the ground of impotence, and only one was based on cruelty. Bohjalian pondered, "How much courage must it have taken in Puritan Boston for a woman to stand up against the stern men who formed the Court of Assistants and petition for divorce?" He imbued Mary, his protagonist, with that courage and unbreakable spirit.
The first part of the book is called "The Book of the Wife," with the second titled "The Book of the Witch." Although religion permeated every aspect of their daily lives, Puritan marriages were, surprisingly, deemed a civil, not sacred, covenant. For that reason, divorce was permitted and the wife was entitled to one-third of the marital estate. When Mary tells her parents that Thomas has abused her, they vow to protect her. Her father declares, "This won't stand. I'm appalled. Let us go see both a friend and a magistrate. . . . Mary and Thomas were married by a magistrate, and I will see to it that they are divorced by a magistrate." Mary's parents love their daughter, but, being good Puritans, they are responsible for having married her off to Thomas. They take her back into their home when she leaves Thomas and the divorce trial proceeds. But they fear for her safety. Obtaining a divorce proves to be anything but simple or uncomplicated. Mary soon becomes the target of a full-fledged witch hunt with her very life at stake.
Each chapter in the book is preceded by an excerpt of the testimony elicited during Mary's trial, a technique that heightens reader curiosity and ratchets up the tension. And the courtroom scenes are riveting and believable. Mary must convince a fourteen-member all-male panel of jurists that her account of marriage to Thomas is true and meets the legal standard of cruelty. Soon, Mary is embroiled in a second trial with few options left to her. At one point, a magistrate refers to her as "a nasty and sharp-tongued woman," a reference Bohjalian is certain will not be lost on his readers. He wanted the story to be contemporary and happened to be writing it during the ill-fated Supreme Court confirmation hearing for Brett Kavanaugh.
Bohjolian effectively tells the story utilizing the language of the time period from Mary's vantage point. He compassionately reveals her thought processes, desires, and fears in the hope that his readers will take Mary into their hearts. It is impossible not to, because she is a sympathetic character with whom female readers, in particular those who have experienced differential treatment because of their gender, will readily empathize. Her parents are equally endearing, and their struggle to balance their realistic assessment of Mary's predicament against their desire to see their beloved child healthy and happy is both engrossing and heartrending. Every supporting character, including Thomas's daughter Peregrine and Constance, the woman who dares defy societal conventions, is fully imagined and intriguing.
Hour of the Witch is an absorbing and entertaining fictional tale. But it is also much more. It is the contemporary tale Bohjalian sought to create and "among the timeliest" he has ever penned. The parallels between 1662 Boston and America in the #MeToo era are inescapable and thought-provoking. Bohjalian hopes readers will ask themselves, "Oh, my god, how have we not come further in the last three hundred and fifty years?" Indeed.
Hour of the Witch is one of the best books of 2021, and destined to be deemed a classic.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Readers' Copy of the book.
We know that early English settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony were very religious and thought a lot about the state of their souls and the devil. The historical record tells us so. According to Chris Bohjalian, they were concerned about the devil a lot. A good chunk of the first third or so of the book has them thinking about little else.
Things start to get more interesting when Mary Deerfield sues her husband for divorce on the grounds of cruelty. Even here, though, the question soon becomes more about whether she's been consorting with the devil (much of the evidence has to do with a three-tined fork, which is, as we all know, the devil's own instrument) as much as it does about whether her husband abuses her.
And there is intrigue as well. It is clear that someone is trying to cast a spell on someone in the Deerfield house, or trying to frame Mary for doing so. But who? And why? Though Mary's ruminations on whether she is unknowingly the devil's tool quickly become tiresome, Bohjalian is quite deft at drawing the reader into this mystery and in making the reader care about Mary's fate, both in life and after.
Of course, the reason that Mary faces such troubles from her community is, of course, that she's a smart woman who occasionally speaks her mind. That truth is lurking behind almost every word in the book, but Bohjalian is subtle in reinforcing it. So don't read this expecting a great deal of outrage about the subservient state of women in 17th century Boston. Do read it for an immersive look into one woman's life and attempt to be more than just a Goodwife to a cruel man.
Things start to get more interesting when Mary Deerfield sues her husband for divorce on the grounds of cruelty. Even here, though, the question soon becomes more about whether she's been consorting with the devil (much of the evidence has to do with a three-tined fork, which is, as we all know, the devil's own instrument) as much as it does about whether her husband abuses her.
And there is intrigue as well. It is clear that someone is trying to cast a spell on someone in the Deerfield house, or trying to frame Mary for doing so. But who? And why? Though Mary's ruminations on whether she is unknowingly the devil's tool quickly become tiresome, Bohjalian is quite deft at drawing the reader into this mystery and in making the reader care about Mary's fate, both in life and after.
Of course, the reason that Mary faces such troubles from her community is, of course, that she's a smart woman who occasionally speaks her mind. That truth is lurking behind almost every word in the book, but Bohjalian is subtle in reinforcing it. So don't read this expecting a great deal of outrage about the subservient state of women in 17th century Boston. Do read it for an immersive look into one woman's life and attempt to be more than just a Goodwife to a cruel man.
I was going to rate it four stars but that ending got me. Five stars for this one!
TW: rape, domestic abuse, miscarriage
TW: rape, domestic abuse, miscarriage
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