"It's weird, isn't it?...That you can have this whole entire life, with all your opinions, your loves, your fears. Eventually those parts of you disappear. And then the people who could remember those parts of you disappear, and before long all that's left is your name in some ledger. This Marcy person---she had a favorite food. She had friends and people she disliked. We don't even know how she died. I guess that's why I like preservation better than history. In preservation I feel like I can keep some of it from slipping away."
from The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, page 76
This story centers around Connie, a young doctoral student, whose eccentric mother, Grace, asks her to take on the preparation of her late grandmother's long-abandonned house for sale. In Connie's first exploration of the dusty, moldy house she finds, in an ancient Bible, a key and a note with the name Deliverance Dane. This discovery not only gives her the impetus for her dissertation but also sends her on the path to some amazing revelations about her own family and even some romance along the way.
The action moves back and forth between Connie in 1991 and the family of the mysterious Deliverance Dane in the 1690's. The author calls these trips back in time Interludes and I found this technique to be very effective. I loved how each Interlude shed more light on Connie's research in the "future."
I found myself thinking back to the trip my husband and I took to Boston in 2009. I had wanted to visit Salem but unfortunately we didn't have time to get there. What excellent background that would have been!
When I first picked up ...Deliverance Dane I was intrigued by the premise. Historical fiction is my favorite genre and I must admit being curious about the Salem witch trials. When I taught fifth grade I enjoyed reading The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare and Blackwater Swamp by Bill Wallace.
Ms. Howe, like her main character Connie, was a doctoral student in American and New England Studies at the time she wrote this novel so her research for the book must have done double duty. It was interesting to learn some theories about the origin of the witch frenzy of this period. A paragraph on page 341 is very enlightening where Connie is thinking about the nature of the word bewitchment and reflects on how the meaning has changed over time. I was struck by the statement that 17th century folk were "operating without sophisticated understanding of the difference between correlation and causation." In other words coincidences might easily have been seen as cause and effect. In addition the author seems to take the premise that the witchcraft of the past was not necessarily mutually exclusive of religious faith. That was very surprising to me.
Katherine Howe's debut novel is a fascinating mixture of history and suspense with a touch of magic. I found it to be a "page turner" but from the looks of reviews I've read, people either loved or hated it. Some said it was too predictable. Perhaps they read the book jacket; I did and there were hints about the plot. Predictability was not a problem for me. In fact the beginning of the novel captured me and toward the end I did not want to put it down. The only weakness to me was the slow-down of the action toward the middle. The dialect was a little challenging but I rather enjoyed it; that added to the realism for me.
The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane reminded me of The Book of Unholy Mischief by Elle Newmark and People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks. All are historical with each involving the journey and/or contents of a mysterious book. I enjoyed them all!
No comments:
Post a Comment