The World As It Should Be by Lee Ann Kostempski; Witches, Kelpies, Demons, and Ghosts Haunt Post Apocalyptic Fantasy Landscape

 The World As It Should Be by Lee Ann Kostempski; Witches, Kelpies, Demons, and Ghosts Haunt Post Apocalyptic Fantasy Landscape 

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Lee Ann Kostempski’s The World As It Should Be is a strange but effective mashup of Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction and Dark Fantasy. It's one of those strange concoctions that takes the best of two or more genres and creates an awesome work of its own.

Charity Olmstead is wandering around a wasteland that used to be Salem, Massachusetts. The world ended in earthquakes and dragon-fire 48 hours prior with few survivors. Charity was kicked out of her studio apartment by her ex-boyfriend, Dean and his mother. She also comes from a witch family and has psychic abilities so ghosts have been bothering her, especially those that have recently died because of the attacks. Charity is in despair when she encounters a kelpie, a shape shifting horse creature originated in Irish and Scottish folklore. Since kelpies are known to consume flesh, a suicidal Charity offers herself to the creature. The Kelpie at first refuses but then strikes a bargain with her. His mate has been killed and he can't find his colt so if Charity helps him look for his child and the monster hunters who killed his mate, then he will eat her. As the two unlikely partners travel through the fallen world, powerful authority figures from Salem have their own theories about who or what caused the end of the world and they want to resurrect the trials that once made their town infamous.

The World As It Should Be is definitely among the darkest Fantasies that I have ever read. The post apocalyptic setting pulls out all the stops with its disturbing graphic imagery and the impact of what it means to those who suffer and try to survive through it. The fact that the protagonist is so suicidal that her main goal is to seek death also adds to the grimness. 

What is particularly disturbing about the setting is the immediacy and cause of this scenario. The end just happened only two days prior and it shows. Charity wanders around a world in a daze because she still remembers the stores and houses that were standing there a week ago. Still remembers friends that she kept in touch with a few days prior and still wouldn't have minded meeting for lunch on a typical day. Still remembers the world that was two days ago. It reminds the Reader of tragic events when the world seems to stop and we remember and long for the normal that happened before.

The cause of the end is terrifying and is even more so the longer one thinks about it. For spoiler’s sake, I won't reveal too much. But let's just say that a hurt soul and an errant wish made out of anger, no matter how righteous it is, caused much damage. It's frightening to imagine someone with that much power and was pushed into such a situation that compelled this thought.

Of course what makes the setting stand out is the presence of fantasy characters and magic users. It's also rather clever that the human characters treat their presence as a non-event. They act like talking to Kelpies and hiding from dragons is simply an everyday occurrence which it probably is. The implications are that they weren't created because of the apocalypse. They have always been there and this is a modern fantasy world that just got hit with a science fiction dystopian situation.

This relative ease between humans and fantasy creatures explains the casual acquaintanceship between Charity and the Kelpie. Humans like Charity are aware of the kelpie’s carnivorous situation so they stay away from them, the way most humans stay away from dangerous animals that could attack them. Charity however shows her death seeking tendencies by approaching him and setting herself up as a meal. The Kelpie is part of a species with animalistic instincts but human-like reason and intellect. They have an urge to feast but know when to do so and decide not to. The Kelpie weighs his options and eventually his growing loyalty towards Charity and his concern for her situation causes him to rethink their bargain. 

The presence of witches and witchcraft is brilliantly handled. Charity reacts like her magical and clairvoyant abilities are something that she has always had to the point that she's tired of them. She walks away from ghosts not out of fear but out of annoyance that they keep stalking her. She has a group of childhood friends called The Coven Kids-sounds like a great YA series-who, like her, are the children of prominent witches in this area of Massachusetts. While Charity grew apart from them upon adulthood, she now pleads with and seeks solace from them for magical assistance and to reclaim her spellcasting heritage. 

Of course where there are witches, there are witch hunters and in Salem that is a definite given. The humans of Salem react the way that humans do when they are faced with a deadly situation, look for a scapegoat, a minority to lay all the blame on. Being prominent Salemites, they revert to their past to find the current scapegoats and resurrect the witch trials that made their town so notorious in the annals of history. The misogyny and authoritarianism of the Salemites is laid bare in the present as they try Charity and the past as a frightening spirit seeks violent vengeance for past sins. It will take all of Charity's magic and intelligence and her friendship with the Kelpie to face her enemies and her own deep depression and suicidal tendencies.

The World As It Should Be is a dark, disturbing, but detailed and endlessly fascinating blend of Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction and Dark Fantasy. It brings the best of both genres to make one whole wonderful book.

Weekly Reader: Six Women of Salem: The Untold Story of the Accused and Their Accusers in the Salem Witch Trials by Marilynne K. Roach; Definitive Account of the Salem Witch Trials Individualizes The People Involved

Weekly Reader: Six Women of Salem: The Untold Story of the Accused and Their Accusers in the Salem Witch Trials by Marilynne K. Roach; Definitive Account of the Salem Witch Trials Individualizes The People Involved

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Of the hundreds of accounts of the Salem Witch Trials, two books stand as the definitive account: The Witches, Salem 1692 by Stacy Schiff is one. It is a comprehensive account of the Trials, covering the people and the events and analyzes the potential reasoning behind it by offering social, psychological, physical, and religious motivations.




Six Women of Salem: The Untold Story of the Accused and Their Accusers in the Salem Witch Trials by Marilynne K. Roach is the other. Instead of being a comprehensive account of the entire event, Roach personalizes it. She focuses on six individuals to show how the Trials affected specific people. While she offers some theories, they narrow in comparison to the immediacy of how lives were destroyed by accusing others and being victims of the accusations.




Roach wisely selected six different women from various social statuses, families, and that stood on different sides in the Trial. They were:




Rebecca Nurse-An elderly woman with a large supportive family. She often helped many people in the Village through troubled child births and illnesses. Despite her good reputation, her family was involved in various lawsuits against another family: The Putnams who became their sworn enemies. Despite the petitions from her family to have her exonerated, she was arrested, tried, and executed by hanging.




Bridget Bishop-A tough poor woman who had a bad temper and three marriages. One of her marriages was abusive and she was forced to stand in the pillory after she defended herself. She was also known to be somewhat bawdy and wore a red petticoat to the dismay of many of her fellow Puritans. Like Nurse, she was arrested, tried, and executed by hanging.




Mary English-A well-to-do woman, she married a man from Jersey who Anglicised his name from Philippe L’Anglais to Phillip English. She was one of the wealthiest families in Salem, but was distrusted because of her wealth and immigrant status. She was arrested and tried along with her husband, but thanks to some influential friends and money, they managed to escape.




Ann Putnam Sr.-The wife of Thomas Putnam and mother of Annie Putnam Jr., one of the afflicted girls. Putnam suffered many stillbirths and infant deaths, becoming afflicted herself and blamed her troubles on her family's enemies, the Nurse family, specifically Rebecca. Her daughter, Annie, became one of the star witnesses identifying people from nearby towns such as Andover and Lynn. After the Trials, Putnam’s daughter Annie was the only one of the accusers to make a public apology after her parents’ deaths.




Tituba-A slave in the home of Rev. Samuel Parris, the first afflicted family. Despite the theories of many, Roach’s book shows that she did not practice fortune telling to frighten the girls and only resorted to folk magic once at the behest of a white neighbor to make a “witch’s cake” to identify the tormentor of the afflictions. Despite this, she was fingered by the girls as the perpetrator and she in turn named two other outcasts: Sarah Goode, a beggar and Sarah Osborne, a woman who had a common law arrangement with a lover. Despite implicating others, Tituba remained in prison throughout the Trials and was eventually sold by Parris to pay off the prison debt that accrued during her confinement.




Mary Warren-A servant girl in the home of John and Elizabeth Proctor. She may have been one of the girls who engaged in fortune telling (by putting a shattered egg in a glass and seeing an image of the man she was to marry. One of the girls believed to be either Rev. Parris’ daughter, Betty or niece, Abigail saw a coffin.). She became one of the accusers who claimed to be haunted by the Devil and named her employers as well as various other people. Though she was eventually tried for witchcraft herself, she continued to accuse others while still in prison. After the Trials, she was released and disappeared from history.




In limiting the accounts to just these six women, Roach makes the accounts of the Trial more personal and intimate. She writes about the women's backgrounds and their various behaviors throughout the Trials. They also show that the accusations could fall on anyone. A woman who was considered a pillar of the community like Nurse, could be tried as a witch just as easily as a woman who previously had a rough reputation like Bishop. Roach showed the innocent lives that were ruined by religious paranoia and fear mongering that led to false accusations and executions or acquired reputations as accused witches.




Roach also engages in some literary techniques. At the beginning and ending of each chapter, Roach writes italicized sections that go into the character’s minds. She admits that these sections are just wishful thinking, but she is able to fill in the blanks with possibilities regarding their motivations and thoughts during their imprisonments.




Tituba in particular benefited from this approach. Because so little is known about her historically, Roach only had a few records and her imagination to go on. Many historians don't know where she came from originally (though Parris purchased her in Barbados), the proper spelling of her name, or what manner of name Tituba is since there are variations in various South American and West African countries. They are even uncertain whether Tituba was black or fully black. Since many of the court documents describe her as “Tituba Indian” or “Tituba, an Indian woman” rather than the usual epithets to describe a black person, it's possible that she may have hailed from South America originally and may have been a First Nation Native American woman or at least mixed race.




Roach’s writings portray Tituba as a woman caught up in a “damned if you do, damned if you don't” situation. She was at the mercy of her white owners and was bound by their laws and morals, having little say in the matter. In the sections depicting Titus's thoughts, she is given the option of either saying she isn't a witch and being beaten severely before her execution or confessing and never being trusted by her master and being sold anyway. While some may have criticized Tituba’s confession as the spark that lit the fire, Roach clearly understood that she was considered the lowest rung in a society that cared very little about her and considered her property. It makes her actions understandable that she would implicate people who had little opinion for her. Also in her presumed confessions, she would insist that “Satan wanted her to hurt the girls,” which she refused, Tituba painted herself as someone who loved the young girls in her care and wanted to protect them even though they named her.




The book also takes us into the eyes of both accusers and accused, the ones who claimed to be afflicted and the ones that were tried as witches, particularly Mary Warren and Anne Putnam Sr. Like reading books about the Holocaust or other terrible periods in history, it is important to understand why people act the way they do. Why did people feel it was their right to consider other people property? Why did they acquire such a low opinion of Jewish people that they were able to send them to death camps without a thought then insisting they were only following orders? And why did people believe so badly they were cursed by the Devil that they had to find someone to blame and that included their friends, family, and neighbors?




While many debate whether the afflicted were affected by mass hysteria, ergotism, or were simply faking it, Roach portrays Warren and Putnam as sincere in their beliefs that the Devil was cursing them. Putnam believed that the deaths of her infant children were the results of God’s punishment for sin in the village. A fear of God's wrath and punishment can cause people to see the Devil everywhere even in those they know.

For Mary Warren, she believed that something was affecting her. While that something more than likely was religious anxiety as well as untreated or unverified at the time mental illness, Warren more than likely stuck to the party line that she was cursed by witches out of fear and confusion. By the time the Trials continued, she and Putnam, as well as the others, were so far gone that to stop would be an admission of guilt. To fully understand history, you have to understand why people did horrible things so they can never be repeated.




Six Women of Salem is an excellent book that brings human faces to this long ago troubling time in history and shows who they were and how they acted and showed they really weren't that different from who we are today.

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