Frances Hill, a noted historian on the Salem witch trials here turns her hand to fiction. Although most people know the basics of the story, Hill gets it started a bit differently, beginning with an Indian attack in the outback of Maine, where the living is a bit more easy, especially as concerns religion, drawing in less hardnosed Puritans, Quakers, and even Baptists. The Harvard-educated Reverend George Burroughs, a former resident of Salem Village and who left it under a cloud, rescues young Mary Cheever during the Indian attack on York, and they are later married and live happily in Wells with Burroughs' houseful of children.
Meanwhile, in Salem Village, young girls playing at fortune telling get into serious trouble and become pawns and actors in a deadly plan by Thomas Putnam, who has many scores to settle. As Hill heats up the narrative and reveals the story in its logical pattern, the community she describes becomes a place of terror. When the group of afflicted girls becomes larger and more people are cried out upon, no one is safe. Even George Burroughs is accused and arrested, and when he is transported from Maine to Salem jail, Mary is determined to find a way to save him. Along with Peter White, an old friend of George's, Mary travels to Salem to plead for her husband's life; they both quickly discover firsthand the horrors that exist in Salem and just how unprepared they are to fight the hysterical forces that threaten to overwhelm them.
Hill, whose nonfiction account (A Delusion of Satan) of this well known chapter in American history is excellently researched and written, does a fine job with providing the period details and necessary background of New England during 1692. I like her taking the stance that Thomas Putnam took control of the situation to promote his own agenda, supplying the girls with the names of those he held grudges against and encouraging them to accuse them. It added dimension to the story and made it more real. Once she keeps the story focussed on the Burroughs, an urgency takes hold that made me keep turning pages even though I knew how things would turn out. Her descriptions of neighbors and friends betraying each other in order to save themselves, of farms and buildings gone untended, of cold and harsh judges, of children left without parents or homes, of awful jail conditions, all ring true and can be favorably compared to what Kathleen Kent depicted in her novel The Heretic's Daughter, as well. Her portraits of George Burroughs, Mary, Peter White, Nathaniel Cary, Margaret Jacobs, and several others are sympathetic and appealing. Mary's whole mission to save her husband is quite heartrending, and I thought Hill was clever in having Mary ask the questions that modern audiences often ask when reading about these cases: How can they believe this? Why is it that the witch didn't have to touch them that time to make them stop when she did before? Can't anyone see that they are play-acting? and suchlike. Her depiction of the judges and especially of their willingness to believe in "spectral evidence" during the trials was downright chilling and made my skin crawl. I wasn't thrilled with several of her pieces of fictional license: for example, her description of Bridget Bishop goes totally against what is known about her; Deliverance, not Lydia, Hobbs was the name of the accused person who implicated Burroughs; Abigail Williams didn't hang herself, she was present throughout the entire period. These changes seem unnecessary or purposeless, and to those very familiar with the story rather jarring. It was a nice touch to include a bibliography, although it seems a little self-serving that four of the nine titles listed were written by the author. But all quibbles aside, on the whole I found this a very readable and engaging novel about this shocking and terrible time in New England's history. It made me want to visit Salem again!
Enjoyed your review! The part about Abigail Williams also confused me; I read it over and wondered, did she mean that? Was it figurative? and then decided it was an odd departure from history. I appreciated seeing the events in Salem from Mary's viewpoint, and the fact that she, Peter, and George (and their few allies, like other relatives of those accused) were the voices of reason in this whole matter made it even more heartrending.
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