Classics Corner: The Witching Hour by Anne Rice; Spellbinding Epic Novel About A Family of Witches is Anne Rice’s Best

Classics Corner: The Witching Hour by Anne Rice; Spellbinding Epic Novel About A Family of Witches is Anne Rice’s Best

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Spoilers: Lestat Who?

Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles is considered her most popular work, but it is far from her best written. At least in this Reader's opinion.

Anne Rice's best work is The Witching Hour, a captivating novel about several generations of a family of witches that is both an epic historical fiction and a spellbinding dark fantasy. Along with Imajica by Clive Barker and Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, The Witching Hour is another favorite book that I read this year.




Michael Curry is a 48-year-old house restorer who moved from New Orleans to San Francisco. He survived a near death experience in which he was pulled from the freezing bay by a mysterious woman captaining a yacht. Besides a longing to meet his beautiful rescuer, Michael also has developed psychometry, an ability in which he receives psychic impressions of people by touching their objects. A few times this ability becomes overwhelming as just brushing past objects like clothes, doorknobs, or windows give him these impressions making walking in public areas difficult. Not only that but he is haunted by childhood memories in his native New Orleans in which he walked by a mansion and encountered a creepy ghostly looking gentleman in old-fashioned clothing unseen by his mother. He retreats into alcohol and solitude until he meets his rescuer, Dr. Rowan Mayfair.




Like Michael, Rowan has an interesting ability and a mysterious connection to New Orleans. A neurologist, Rowan has healing powers that have nothing to do with her education and experience as a doctor. She can heal people with a touch but has been known to accidentally kill them as well. She had a couple of victims to her credit including her adopted father.




While Michael's abilities stem from his near-drowning experience, Rowan's abilities appear to be inherited from a family of witches. Even though she is adopted by distant cousins and raised as their daughter, Rowan is the illegitimate daughter of Deirdre Mayfair, a catatonic woman who has been in the care of her domineering aunt, Carlotta.

Oh yes and it is her family manse where Michael encountered the ghostly figure. The Mayfair Family (and a few others) knows about the figure as well. They refer to him as either “The Man” or “Lasher” and he usually appears in the presence of certain specific members as if guarding them and is also seen when said member dies.

Rowan learns about her family at the same time that both her adopted and birth mother die. The deaths send her, Michael, and their new friend Aaron Lightner, a member of the Talamasca, a group that studies paranormal activity, to New Orleans to learn about the history of the mysterious enigmatic Mayfair family.




Rowan and Michael make for a charming couple as they are a study in contrasts. Michael is more emotional and spiritual. He is convinced that he survived his near-death experience because he has to do some good with his abilities. Rowan is more logical and frightened of her abilities wishing they would disappear. Michael has a love of history and a deep connection to the past which is illustrated in his occupation of restoring old houses and his nostalgic feelings for New Orleans. Rowan at first prefers to live in the now, fascinated with medical research and modern living. After she becomes acquainted with Michael and the Mayfairs, Rowan falls in love with this odd family and their history. Michael and Rowan are an excellent team as they become a romantic couple and help each other through their struggles.




The highlight of the book (and the majority of the action) is detailed in a long account that the Talamasca has collected on the Mayfair Family since 17th century Scotland when Petyr Van Abel first met Deborah Mayfair, the daughter of a Scottish woman who was executed as a witch. Petyr helped Deborah escape, and hid her in the Talamasca's Amsterdam headquarters. The lovely Deborah becomes a model for noted Dutch artists like Rembrandt and marries a French count. Petyr meets Deborah again almost twenty years later when she is on trial for witchcraft, accused by her in-laws, and in despair for not only herself but her daughter, Charlotte. Though Peter is unable to save Deborah, he assists Charlotte in her escape and reunites with her years later in Haiti where she heads a plantation and is married to a sickly man. Through Deborah and Charlotte, Peter becomes acquainted with Lasher, a demon who helps the mother and daughter by catering to their needs and continues to be a part of subsequent generations as the family's advisor, lover, familiar, guardian and quite possibly the means of their destruction.




Deborah and Charlotte Mayfair set the pattern of the following generations in which they have extraordinary magical or psychic abilities which are passed from parent to child, mother to daughter mostly (with one exception). The members retain the last name of Mayfair as they travel from France to Haiti ultimately settling in New Orleans in the late 18th century.




The Mayfair Family History is an amazing account as Rice individualizes each member making them brilliant fleshed out characters, an impressive feat considering that she covers nearly 400 years of history. The most intriguing members are the witches: thirteen members that have powerful abilities and are linked by an emerald necklace that they wear on special occasions, their deep connection to Lasher which manifests from infancy, and their designation as the heir to the Mayfair Family legacy. Their strange family legacy of magic and supernatural abilities proves to be a benefit as they become quite powerful because of it but also is destructive as various members fall into unhappy love affairs (some with close family members), violent deaths, and/or self-destructive behaviors.




Among the most interesting of the Mayfair Witches are:

Julien- The only male member with magical abilities, he is active from the mid 19th century to the 1920’s. He is a sophisticated gentleman about town known for his affairs with men and women and his cultural tastes often attending operas and plays. Many of his lovers, especially his male ones, recount his love life which was passionate and stormy as he slept around with just about anyone that moved. He lived to be quite old and died of natural causes.

Mary Beth-One of my favorite characters in the book, Mary Beth, Julien’s niece and possibly daughter, is active from the late 19th century to the 1920’s. She is an ardent businesswoman who increased the Mayfair Family fortune by investing in various companies and technologies. Like Julian, she too has various affairs and dresses like a boy and accompanies Julien to brothels as well as engages in affairs with younger men.

Mary Beth’s savvy business skills brings her family untold wealth and her familial ties, particularly displayed during the family get-togethers that she organizes, allows  th various branches of the Mayfair Family to bond. She too lives to be quite old and dies of cancer.

Stella- Mary Beth's daughter, she is active from the 1910’s to the 1920’s. She is a free-spirited flapper who listens to jazz and flirts with many men including with Stuart Townsend, a member of the Talamasca who disappeared while investigating her. Stella hosts various parties and séances, and brags about her abilities to those outside the family acquiring a reputation as “The Witch of New Orleans”. She also has  a close relationship with her unstable brother, Lionel who during a party shoots  an kills her.

Antha-Stella's daughter, Dierdre's mother, and Rowan's grandmother, she is active from the 1920’s to 1930’s, Antha is more introverted than her mother, Stella and grandmother, Mary Beth. Antha is a romantic budding author who attempts to leave the family legacy behind and settle in New York to begin her writing career. Unfortunately, she is pushed or jumps from a third story window to her death at the Mayfair home.




The other non-magical family members are interesting in their own ways as well from the unstable Lionel, to the secretive Cortland who may be Rowan's biological father, the sweet but mentally disabled, Belle and the ruthless Carlotta who may be responsible for the deaths of various family members. The Mayfairs stand out as individuals and as a unit. It is easy to see why Rowan bonds instantly with the family and despite the scares that she and Michael encounter, is happy to be a part of them.




When the book returns to the present, it drags a bit as Rowan and Michael rebuild the Mayfair house thanks to Rowan inheriting the lot, and Rowan attempts to communicate with Lasher who avoids her until the time is right. However, things begin to pick up when Lasher and Rowan finally meet and the demon reveals his desire to be with her.




Tension and fear develop as the characters’ motives are questioned particularly Lasher's. Is he protecting the family or hurting them? What does he want from them to serve them or to rule over them? Why do the Witches attract him and what is he looking for in them particularly in Rowan? Lasher like the Mayfair Witches builds suspense because even though he fascinates and captivates other characters as well as the Reader, no one knows exactly who he really is and what he wants.

Like the rest of the Mayfairs, Lasher is the type of character that may be fun at a party but only the very foolish would be alone with him.




The story build into a climax as Rowan and Michael learn the reasons for their abilities and why they were called to the Mayfair Home. The conclusion is open-ended as yet another generation is born that will no doubt retain the Mayfair legacy of witchcraft, sexuality, and danger.

Classics Corner: Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews; Emotional Moving Gothic Novel Is More Than Its Titillating Controversial Reputation

Classics Corner: Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews; Emotional Moving Gothic Novel Is More Than Its Titillating Controversial Reputation

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Spoilers: If I were to ask people to name one thing about V.C. Andrews's Gothic novel, Flowers in the Attic, it would be “Brother and Sister Incest.” The answer would be “Well yes, technically.”




As though it were the Fifty Shades of its day, the first book in Andrews's Dollanganger Series raunchy reputation precedes itself. Though with E.L. James’ barely disguised Twilight fanfiction (and badly written Twilight fanfiction at that), the reputation is all that it has to offer Readers.

While Flowers in the Attic is attached to controversy and many read the books because of the controversy (I remember many girls in Middle and High School with a copy in their hands), the book is actually better than the reputation it has been given.

At least the writing in the first book. The rest of Andrews's Dollanganger series takes a definite nose dive and foregoes quality, theme, and characterization to introduce plot points in an attempt to provoke the Reader and bring controversy. It almost becomes cartoonish or soap opera-like the way that the sexual themes and melodramatic plot points pile up and repeat themselves in the later books. Characters that were once interesting become caricatures and Cathy Dollanganger, the series’ main protagonist, almost hits Mary Sue proportions by the third or fourth book.

However, the first book in the series, Flowers in the Attic, balances the rest out as a well-written modern Gothic novel about child abuse, survival instincts, religious hypocrisy, and the lengths people go through to get money.




In the beginning, the Dollanganger Family seems like the perfect 1950’s dollhouse family. (A family joke has many people describe the fair-haired siblings Chris, Cathy, Carrie, and Cory as “The Dresden Dolls.”) A father who is a well-to-do businessman, a mother who is very loving towards her husband and children, and four children who are bright and brimming with talent. Eldest son, Chris is a genius and budding medical doctor, middle daughter, Cathy is a future ballerina, while the twins, Carrie and Corey are talented prodigies in music and animal studies respectively.

Everything is perfect in their lives until their father, Christopher is killed in a car accident. The family is left destitute when their mother, Corrine, reveals that they have been living above their means and that she has no marketable or employable skills so she has no choice but to pack the kids to Virginia and live with her estranged parents.




When the Dollanganger Family arrives at Corrine’s childhood home, they are met by a very frosty stern grandmother who orders the children to live inside the third floor bedroom and gives several orders. The orders include that they can only go to the attic, they are to be never heard or seen by anyone, and that their dying grandfather is never to know that the children are in the house or even that they exist.

The reason for all these rules, the Grandmother (as the kids call her “The Grandmother.” There is no love lost in this family.), says is because their parents “lived in sin.”: Their father was their grandfather's half-brother and therefore their mother's half-uncle. Christopher and Corrine eloped, changed their last names from Foxworth to Dollanganger, and raised their children who were none the wiser. The overly religious grandmother keeps the children locked up partly because Corrine's father hasn't forgiven her and she doesn't want him to know any “unholy issue” came from their parent’s marriage. She also doesn't want the children of the same sex lying next to each other or seeing each other dressing for fear that the children will repeat the same pattern as their parent's.




Ironically, the barriers that The Grandmother puts around the children enable them to do the very thing that she was trying to prevent. Flowers in the Attic is a perfect example of a self-fulfilling prophecy like Oedipus Rex in which the character's attempts to stop something plunge them right into the very thing they are trying to stop. The Grandmother is blinded by religious intolerance and her narrow view of sin that she keeps the children locked up for three years deprived of any outside stimulation. Her desire to keep the adolescent Chris and Cathy (who age from 15-18 and 12-15 respectively in their captivity) from any friends or peers their own age, right when their bodies are developing and their sexuality is beginning to be explored, proves to be a detriment. Cathy and Chris are going through biological changes and have heightened drives and no one else with which to explore them. Is it any wonder that two teenage siblings would explore these drives with each other when they are cut off from any other outside stimulation? The incest between the two siblings is less of an attempt at arousal than it becomes an attempt to survive in a claustrophobic environment. Which is more than the later books have. They sacrifice paragraphs that develop the characters that just happened to contain sexual themes for sexy paragraphs that are written solely to titillate the Reader and provide cheap thrills.




Flowers in the Attic is less about sex than it is about survival. Like the passages that describe incest between Chris and Cathy, everything they do is a means of surviving their three year captivity. The two older children act as parents to the younger children becoming better parents than the narcissistic Corrine and unloving Grandmother. When Corey and Carrie first complain that they are bored, Chris and Cathy create various games and activities such as putting on plays and drawing flowers and animals to create a paper garden. They soothe the younger ones’ fears and nurse them through illnesses (which Chris is able to diagnose symptoms because of old medical books left in the Attic). They stand up for Corey in front of their grandmother and mother when he becomes fatally ill. In some of the more heartbreaking moments after the Grandmother starves them for a week, Chris cuts himself and gives the twins his blood to drink. They show deep love and self-sacrifice more than the adults around them.




If Cathy and Chris show love and self-sacrifice then their mother and grandmother show the opposite. Corrine and her mother vary in their motives and means of abusive behavior, but both contribute to the children's deprivation. The Grandmother is practically a character from a Grim fairy tale. She is bound by her interpretation of the Bible and God's retribution over his forgiveness and love. She is hypocritical in her dealings with her daughter and grandchildren constantly taunting them with “God sees everything you do” paying little attention to the abuse that she inflicts.

She is also a master at manipulating the children with emotional abuse. There are a few times when Cathy and Chris manage to sneak out to the roof and in one passage make it as far as the yard, but they are so weakened by The Grandmother's cruel treatment that they don't even attempt to run away. (In fact they don't run away until they realize that their lives are in danger.)




The Grandmother's behavior doesn't surprise Cathy and Chris at all because she hates them from the moment that they walk into her mansion. It's their mother’s behavior that surprises them. A woman who was once very loving and affectionate and visits her children every day decreases her visits and then stops them altogether. Originally, Corrine is forced to reveal marks on her back to show that she too is a victim of her parent's abuse. She claims that she is saving money and attending night school classes so she can leave her parents. She also claims that she has to obey her father so she can win back his love. However, she also appears dressed in fancy clothes, gives them expensive toys (using money that could have funded their get away), and reports going on trips, attending dances, and being courted by handsome rich men. Naturally, the children become suspicious that their mother is less concerned about them than she is about the bling.




It is purposely left unclear whether Corrine was always a narcissistic selfish person and the children were blinded by their youthful naivety and belief that “Mommy and Daddy were always perfect” (Chris certainly favors this as being close to their mother and defending her when she isn't around. Cathy, more cynical and closer to her late father, doesn't agree) or Corrine became that way since moving back in with her parents and succumbing to their views. (The movies like the 1987 film and the 2015 miniseries show earlier scenes of her suspicions and vanity to make her antagonistic character more obvious from the word, “go.”)

But definitely as they are held captive, Corrine cares less and less about them and more about the financial gain she will receive. Corrine's longing for money becomes so obsessive that she commits unthinkable acts towards her children.




Once they realize that their lives are in danger, Cathy and Chris make plans to escape. Though the Dollanganger Children escape their captivity physically, the emotional scars remain. One thing the other books in the series show us is how the abuse stays with the Dollangangers as they continue to have health problems caused by their imprisonment and undernourishment, still retain post-trauma and other disorders, and later exhibit unhealthy behaviors towards significant others and children.




If the writing in the later books could have kept that emotion and retained the thematic elements of abuse, trauma, hypocrisy, and greed the Flowers in the Attic had, The Dollanganger Series could have been very compelling reading. Unfortunately, the others don't measure up and only the original reigns supreme.

Forgotten Favorites: The Lamplighter by Anthony O'Neill; Dark and Bloody Supernatural Thriller About The Terrors Found in Dreams

Forgotten Favorites: The Lamplighter by Anthony O'Neill; Dark and Bloody Supernatural Thriller About The Terrors Found in Dreams

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Spoilers: Dreams can be great things to have. They reflect stress that a person has throughout the day and create breaks and possible solutions. They connect the Dreamer to various archetypes and symbols in the Collective Consciousness. They reflect our strongest desires and ambitions and possibly foretell the future. However, they also reflect our worst fears and sometimes can seem worse than reality. What if those nightmares came true and not only affected the Dreamer but the world around them?




That is the premise behind Anthony O'Neill's fascinating but little known novel, The Lamplighter. Evelyn Todd, a young woman in 19th century Edinburgh had a vibrant imagination that helped her through a troubled childhood at a home for destitute girls. As a girl, she is fascinated by a lamplighter outside the girl’s home. She creates stories and draws pictures about the adventures of a traveling lamplighter which she calls “Leerie,” (a slang term for Lamplighter). When her stories begin to frighten the other girls, the home's director orders her to stop talking about them. He no sooner gives her the order, then a mysterious man arrives claiming to be Evelyn's father and takes her to his home. She tells him about her Leerie stories and a few days later, her father introduces her to a man who resembles her drawings and claims to be Leerie.




Twenty years later, as the narrator tells us, “the streets of Edinburgh were filled with blood.” A professor is murdered and his body is scattered along the road. Inspector Groves, a conceited police inspector, links the murder to a similar one to a lighthouse keeper and other murders that follow. Meanwhile Thomas McKnight, a professor of logic and metaphysics, and his friend, Joseph Canavan, a gravedigger, are also investigating the murder since the deceased professor was a colleague and professional rival of McKnight's. McKnight, Canavan, and Groves are led to the now-adult Evelyn who works for a bookseller and whose nights are filled with dreams of detailed serial murders and her old imaginary friend (or is it enemy?) ,Leerie. Also many people, including Canavan and Evelyn, report sightings of a sinister demonic figure in the shadows.




The book is filled with suspense and horror-filled moments that rather than provide lame attempts at creating jump scares, instead enhance the plot and the surreal quality of the murders and Evelyn's dreams which either foretell the murders or are active participants. The chapters detailing the murders and the demonic figure are scary the way that H.P. Lovecraft's writing is scary. The creature doesn't have a specific shape and is seen in and out of the shadows like a figure of nightmares that changes shape and wouldn't have a specific form in the material world.




O'Neill puts interesting characters into this dark daymare of a novel. The most fascinating is Evelyn herself. She is secretive and cynical when Groves, Canavan, McKnight question her. (When Groves repeats his claims that her descriptions of the dreams as “vague”, she responds, “Yes, you told me that before.”) While the men particularly McKnight, think she's mentally ill or at least suffering from guilt from an overactive imagination that places her at the scene of the crime, Evelyn appears to have some dark secrets that she hides with her cryptic comments and scars that she hides behind gloves and scarves. In one tense chapter through hypnosis Evelyn explains her past in a story that is both creepy and heartbreaking. She recounts abuse and torture from guardians and her rage against them which might manifest in sinister creatures formed from her mind.




McKnight, Groves, and Canavan appear to be less defined. Groves is more interested in his memoirs and getting his name heard and considers solving the case as nothing more than adding a decisive finish to his illustrious career. McKnight is a very logical left-brained sort of man who questions her account constantly. Canavan is a more emotional sort who wants to rescue Evelyn seeing her as a damsel in distress. They are almost stereotypes but it makes sense when it is hinted that Evelyn's nightmare creatures not only come true, but she is also able to create protections and safeguards against them. Could those safeguards include creating people who open up repressed memories that manifest themselves as a demon that attacks her abusers on her behalf? This possibility is purposely left open-ended but is very meta and clever the more the Reader thinks about it.




The Lamplighter's protagonists have a hard time telling fantasy from reality and the more that Evelyn's nightmares take shape, the more frightening they become. This leads to a spellbinding and captivating conclusion that leaves the Reader with questions about the division between Reality and Imagination. This is the type of book that is both a standard horror story and a metaphysical journey. It is a dream come true, but not always the best dreams.

Weekly Reader: Voodoo Queen: The Spirited Lives of Marie Leveau by Martha Ward; The Voodoo Queens Come To Colorful Life In This Engaging Enchanting Biography

Weekly Reader: Voodoo Queen: The Spirited Lives of Marie Leveau by Martha Ward; The Voodoo Queens Come To Colorful Life In This Engaging Enchanting Biography

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Spoilers: In New Orleans, the name Marie Leveau is a familiar one. In her lifetime, she was considered “The Voodoo Queen”, a priestess who used her connections to Voodoo to help friends and curse enemies. There are plenty of Voodoo shops dedicated to her memory and her grave in the St. Louis Cemetery is often decorated with beads, rum, and other gifts from people who wish to bestow good fortune upon friends or ill luck upon enemies. Many have reported encounters with what could be her ghost. (including this Reader who had a Tarot reading from a very strange woman who disappeared right after.) In her book, Voodoo Queen: The Spirited Lives of Marie Leveau, Martha Ward, University Research Professor of Anthropology, Urban Studies, and Women's Studies at the University of New Orleans captures the colorful and controversial spirit of Leveau, showing us a woman and a religion that have both been misunderstood and giving us a book that is both an engaging and effective way in explaining who Leveau was and what Voodoo was really all about. Many misconceptions that people have about Leveau and Voodoo are challenged by Ward’s excellent research and writing that helps the Reader understand Leveau and a religion that has been demonized by Hollywood films and zombie culture.




One of the misconceptions that Ward dispelled right away was that Marie Leveau was only one woman. Actually, she was two: a mother and daughter, Marie the First Leveau Paris Glapion (1801-1881) and Marie the Second Eucharist Heloise Leveau Glapion (1827-1875?). Both women studied Voodoo and developed reputations within their communities as leaders in both the sociopolitical and religious structures.




Much of the book focuses on the Leveaus’ involvement as community leaders as well as priestesses. New Orleans Voodoo, as described by Ward, appears to be a spiritual practice that thrives on communal involvement. The Laveaus often led ceremonial dances and meetings in which the guests sang songs, danced, and ate gumbo while appealing to “La Grand Zombi” (or the Great Spirit.). Their get-togethers were also filled with magic as people appealed to the Leveaus to aid them in obtaining money to repay debts or to curse someone who wronged them. Many of the passages describe the give-and-take process as people who believed in Voodoo offered trinkets, food, and other items to the Leveaus in exchange for their aid in casting spells and offering gris-gris (amulets and other magical talismans that offer protection for the users.).




Voodoo is explored brilliantly in this book by bringing it down to its historic roots. Brought by enslaved people from West Africa to America, Voodoo has its roots in Catholicism as its practitioners communicate with Saints and participate in Catholic rites and rituals as well as Shamanism in which the religious figures have a close connection to the Spirit World and are bridges between the Spirits and the Physical World. Those who follow Voodoo also invoke ancestors as well as spirits who protect them from harm.

The book also is quick to show the differences that New Orleans Voodoo has compared to others such as the more well-known branch, Haitian Voodoo. The emphasis on community is much stronger in the New Orleans branch as Voodoo is often used as a means to bring people together and to challenge the sociopolitical structure around its users.(This was particularly important as many of the practitioners of Voodoo in the Leveaus’ day were often escaped slaves, freed blacks who purchased their freedom, and white women who recognized the following as one that offered them power.)

Also there is a strong female-oriented presence within the New Orleans version as many of the rituals and meetings are headed by women such as the Leveaus. The spiritual training is often passed down from mother to daughter (as between Marie the First to Marie the Second and possibly how the First learned from her mother.) though the training can be between a man and a woman (as one of Leveau's descendants known as “Luke Turner” did to author, Zora Neale Hurston). The female leaders were called Voodoo Queens.

While Voodoo does involve spells from people seeking revenge against hated enemies is present, Voodoo is not the Satanic Zombie-creating religion many perceive. Instead it is a vibrant spiritual practice which involves a deep sense of community and a personal connection with Spirits.




Besides using Voodoo, the Leveaus were also involved in aiding the people around them on more physical levels. Marie the First often helped nurse the sick during the Yellow Fever epidemics and she and her husband also used some clever legal means to buy slaves with the intent of freeing them from bondage.




Marie the Second was just as committed to helping the people around her as her mother. She formed friendships with powerful judges, attorneys, and city government employees. She also used both her magic and allegiances to aid others such as protecting women who were abused by their husbands or obtaining defense for people who had been wrongfully convicted.




The book also focuses on the Leveaus’ complicated lives as Creoles and their romances with men who were considered unsuitable by society's standards. The Leveaus, like many residents of Louisiana, were Creoles, people who had their origins from various places such as France, Spain, and the West Indies. In Marie the First's case she also had ancestry from Africa as well as Europe. Her mother's family came from Central Africa and her father may have been white. Because no portraits or photographs exist of the Leveaus in their lifetimes, no one had a definite idea of their physical appearances. Many eyewitnesses described them as “tall and extremely dark-skinned” or “small and so fair-skinned that they could pass for white.” Their appearances were almost a mirror of New Orleans society and the strange dynamic that the city had among the races which suggested more inclusion and acceptance but still as a Southern state in pre-Civil War America participated in the institution of slavery and later in segregation.




Even the romances between the Maries and the men in their lives were dictated by the standards at the time. Many accounts in Marie the First's lifetime described her husband, Christophe Glapion as a “Free Man of Color,” a description that couldn't be further from the truth (though Ward wrote that many biographers even to this day report this as fact. Even Leveau's younger daughter, Philomene, described him as such.). Actually, he was a white man who declared himself a free light-skinned black man so he could marry Leveau. Despite the anti-miscegenation laws, Leveau and Glapion married, had five children though only two daughters, Marie the Second and Philomene survived to adulthood, and bought a house on St. Anne St.

Marie the Second also had a disadvantageous union. She fell in love with Pierre Crocker, a married man who already had an official mistress (therefore was not permitted to legally have another). Despite this, Marie the Second had five children by Crocker and a longtime relationship with him. The romances between the Leveaus and the men in their lives showed the hypocrisy of New Orleans society which considered itself more free-spirited and liberal than the rest of the U.S.’s more rigid laws, but only up to a certain point. They had definite opinions about racial mixing and that relationships outside of marriage could only be tolerated so far.




Ward’s book also reveals the decline of the Leveaus’ influence but not by magical or spiritual means, but by something that Ward described as “a bird that was more powerful:” Jim Crow. The Jim Crow Segregation laws, put to a stop the Leveaus’ interracial get-togethers and caused their influence in New Orleans society to decline. They never recovered even after Marie the Second disappeared from the public eye in 1873 and may have died in 1875 (though no one knows what actually happened to her) and Marie the First died of natural causes in 1881. However, they got the last laugh as Voodoo and their legacy are still a part of the fabric in New Orleans history and current society.




Voodoo Queens: The Spirited Lives of Marie Leveau, is a brilliantly written and well-researched book that brings the two women to life in a biography that humanizes both them and their religion.

Classics Corner: The Turn of The Screw by Henry James; Haunting Gothic Ghost Story is a Suspenseful Psychological Tale That Asks More Questions Than Gives Answers

Classics Corner: The Turn of The Screw by Henry James; Haunting Gothic Ghost Story is a Suspenseful Psychological Tale That Asks More Questions Than Gives Answers

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Spoilers: I apologize for being late and having so many entries at once, but there was a cold and flu bug going around our house and I had headaches that prevented me from going on the Internet for very long, but I am better and I have a lot to show.
 Henry James knew a thing or two about psychology as well as the supernatural. His brother, William was an eminent philosopher, psychologist, and is considered the Father of Modern American Psychology. He also was a believer in Spiritualism and Mysticism and was the founder of the American Society for Psychical Research. These topics also interested Henry as many of his novels have shown.

Many of Henry James’ novels dissect the motives and means behind his characters particularly his female protagonists. Whether it's Wings of a Dove’s Kate Croy, Washington Square's Catherine Sloper, Daisy Miller's titular character, or (my favorite) Portrait of a Lady’s Isabel Archer, James took his Readers inside the female psyche to show how these characters challenged or surrendered to the world around them. Many of his characters were haunted by past misdeeds, structures that confined them, and expectations and ambitions that they strove to meet but often came up short. In short, many of his protagonists were haunted people.




That's what makes James’ novella, The Turn of the Screw so fascinating. Throughout the book, the Reader is uncertain whether it is the area or the people that are haunted. Are the spirits real or hallucinations? All the Reader knows for sure is whenever haunted people and haunted situations get together, unpleasant things are certain to happen.




The Narrator of James’ story is an unnamed governess who is hired to look after Flora and Miles, a young orphaned brother and sister put in the the custody of their wealthy uncle. The uncle, having no experience with children, is often away leaving the children at boarding school or under the care of servants. (In fact, the uncle is barely in the book no doubt to avoid a Jane Eyre/Rochester romance between him and the governess.) Shortly after the Governess arrives, young Miles is expelled from his school for reasons that are never fully explained but implied was because of some “untoward violation.” He returns to his home to join his sister and the staff.




That's when the Governess starts seeing some strange figures of a man and woman hovering within mirrors, through windows, and often near the children. They have menacing expressions, seem to appear and disappear at will, and no one else acknowledges their presence. The Governess becomes frightened especially after she describes the Ghostly Duo to Mrs. Grose, the housekeeper. Mrs. Grose reveals that they resemble Miss Jessel, the Governess’ predecessor and Peter Quint, the uncle's valet who had a sexual relationship with Miss Jessel. That's all interesting in a gossipy sort of way except um...Quint and Miss Jessel are well you know….dead.

The Governess is determined to protect the children especially when it appears that Flora and Miles see and communicate with the ghosts. What is their intention? Are they planning on harming the children from the other side or killing them and dragging them to Hell? Are they manifestations of some kind of secret guilt that the residents share? Are the ghosts even real or projects of an overactive imagination from an excitable and overwrought governess? James never tells us the answer.




The Turn of the Screw is one of those type of books that leaves the interpretation up to the Reader. While that can be annoying to some, others (such as myself) enjoy this psychological approach of providing their own analytical response to the book.

Many hints are provided that Quint and Jessel were not nice people in life to say the least. Mrs. Grose implied that Quint was “too free with everyone,” and that Miss Jessel often acquiesced to his leadership. Could that have meant that he molested Miles and that he groomed Miss Jessel to molest Flora? It's possible.




Flora and Miles exhibit what could be considered classic signs of being victims of sexual abuse. Flora often keeps to herself and wanders off to unknown locations. Miles acts extremely mature and exhibits knowledge of adult activities beyond his age. Then there's his expulsion, conveniently after Quint's death. Could Miles have exhibited some of his new found knowledge to his fellow students or exhibited some other violent or aggressive tendencies that he learned from Quint? With his superficial charm, secretive nature, and desire to disobey his elders (such as sneaking out of the house at night) just because “he can,” Miles certainly exhibits signs of being a budding sociopath. Are the ghosts then planning to possess the kids to continue their control over them from Beyond?




Then there's the Governess. While she is clearly concerned and protective over the children, she is also prone to fits of hysteria. Many times after she encounters the ghosts, she comes across as a mentally ill person, particularly trying to convince everyone else that the ghosts exist. Her behavior seems to suggest that the ghosts may not be real and are products of her imagination or hallucinations from a repressed, but unhinged mind. (Though if that were true, it would not explain how the Governess would know what Quint and Jessel, two people she had never met before, look like enough for Mrs. Grose to recognize them from her description.)




At times the Governess could be just as unbalanced and just as harmful to the children as her predecessors, even in her determination to save them. In one frightening passage, The Governess’ insane rambling frightens Flora particularly after the girl tells her she doesn't see the ghosts. Ironically in trying to prevent Flora from being taken by the ghosts, the Governess’ behavior isolates Flora and particularly Miles further and puts them right in their paths.




The Turn of the Screw is the type of ghost story that is more than a simple tale involving ghosts. It raises more questions than answers forcing the Readers to make their own conclusions therefore proving that sometimes the scariest ghosts are found inside the human mind.

Classics Corner: The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories by H.P. Lovecraft; An Anthology About Fear of the Unknown and The Madness That Comes With It

Classics Corner: The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories by H.P. Lovecraft; An Anthology About Fear of the Unknown and The Madness That Comes With It

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: I admit it. I have dementophobia which is a fear of insanity and mental illness. Even though I have Depression and Anxiety, watching movies or shows or reading books where a character has a breakdown and needs to be institutionalized terrifies me. I especially fear them when they involve verbal and auditory hallucinations. I remember reading Charlotte Perkins Gilman's “The Yellow Wallpaper” for the first time at a college student center and threw the book down because it affected me so badly. (It has since become one of my favorite short stories of all time).

I also remember, in middle school, reading a short story called, “Voices” about a young girl hearing voices in her head telling her who's going to die then passing this ability to her friend after she dies. This story made me so sick that I had to go to the nurse. The teacher agreed saying that I looked “as white as a sheet.”




So you can understand my conflicting feelings about reading The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories by H.P. Lovecraft. Knowing that Lovecraft loved to write about madness and that he himself spent a number of years in various institutions, I knew this would be a potentially scary adventure. But as always, I challenge myself in my reading and even though I was frightened, I was able to recognize and appreciate the fear factor in which Lovecraft's stories conveyed.




One of the most interesting aspects to Lovecraft's stories are the set ups. Sometimes the presentation of the monsters are lackluster (Cthulhu is part octopus and several other aquatic animals), but they often are preceded by a sense of madness and tension that fills the characters and the Reader with fear long before they arrive. Even their names are enough to drive a person to insanity. Usually the encounters leave the characters succumbing to insanity and drug addiction to forget them.




Another interesting aspect is the interconnection of the stories. They all appear to be set in the same universe, the majority in a fictional town called Arkham, Massachusetts. (Batman fans will recognize the tribute to Lovecraft's work with the name for Arkham Asylum where Gotham City's not so finest are usually sent after their encounters with the Caped Crusader.) Many names are repeated in various stories like Ryloth, Dagon, Nylarhotep, and of course Cthulhu. Many characters refer to a spell book called the Necromonicon which usually becomes the gateway to these creatures. In fact the stories’ interconnection so inspired other authors to write about this world so now the Cthulhu Mythos has become a shared universe.




All of the stories are terrifying but my favorite stories are:




Celephais-I call this Lovecraft-lite (or as lite as he can be). A man dreams of a beautiful city and spends the rest of his life trying to get to it through other dreams, travel, and drug use. Finally he sees the city once more and it's residents welcome him as people see his body wash up onshore. He is only able to visit the place after death.




The Rats in the Walls-Lovecraft wrote about family secrets and this one was quite terrifying. After his son's death, a widower visits his ancestral home. He is haunted by the sound of rats scurrying in the walls. He discovers a secret door which leads to several quadruped humans bred to be chattel and then food for his ancestors. The final scene is very gruesome as the man succumbs to his family hunger but refuses to admit it blaming it on the rats in the walls that he still hears in his padded cell.




He-Lovecraft shows the decline of progress in the big city. A visitor to New York City encounters a mysterious man in old fashioned garb. Through the man’s storytelling the narrator is taken on a visual journey to New York City's past where he sees it literally transform from the forest and village that it once was to the bustling city. The man then takes the Narrator to the future where the city is destroyed by smog, overcrowding, and violence. The Narrator then realizes that the man has more than insight to New York’s past. He was one of the early settlers. The narrator runs but he can't forget the man or his visions.




The Call of Cthulhu-The story that brought that lovable Dark God to our hearts. The Narrator receives a letter from his uncle and two sculptures of some really ugly characters. He learns that his uncle had been studying massive outbreaks of hysteria, madness, and suicide all over the world. Various unrelated cults around the world celebrate the return of the Old Ones, particularly a character called Cthulhu. The uncle also learns that this cult began when a meteor fell from the sky.

That's frightening enough but an account from a sailor is even more so. He and his crew encounter morass where the meteor fell. They end up in a place called Ryloth and get a glimpse of Cthulhu before they retreat with only one sailor left.




The Shadow Over Innsmouth-Not only is this story a creepy description of a village with a dark secret but the implication that it's a follow up to a previous story, Dagon makes it even more chilling. In Dagon, a sailor ends up near a strange land mass containing a monolith about a sea creature. He becomes terrified when he encounters the sea creature and retreats back to his home to bury his fear in drug addiction. He then learns of the creature's possible name from a friend who describes it as Dagon, a very rare and obscure god who is no longer recognized.

Now, here’s the interesting part about Innsmouth, the Narrator (a different one this time), goes to the titular village which consists of reclusive locals who worship Dagon. So not only have people become aware of Dragon's presence by the time Innsmouth is set, but a cult is created and a village is inhabited by his followers. (It is entirely possible that Dragon's Narrator enabled him to travel to our world and be recognized). Even better, the Innsmouth villagers have mated with either Dagon himself or various sea creatures and are reptilian or amphibian in appearance with fish eyes that never blink, scales on their bodies, large feet, and a persistent odor of fish.




The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories is a truly chilling but well-written anthology about the fear of the unknown, the creatures in the dark and the madness that often comes when they are encountered.

Classics Corner: The Shining by Stephen King; Book Takes Us Inside Where The Movie Failed To Go

Classics Corner: The Shining by Stephen King; Book Takes Us Inside Where The Movie Failed To Go

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Spoilers: There are many who think that the film version of The Shining directed by Stanley Kubrick is a classic horror film. They remember the dolly camera angles around the Overlook Hotel, the ghostly Grady Sisters taunting Danny with a “Come, play with us”, and Jack Nicholson smashing through the door with an ax crazily chanting, “Here's Johnny!” Yes, there are many who consider it a classic horror film, if not the ultimate horror film.




Nearly everyone that is except Stephen King, the book's author.

Well, Steve that makes two of us. I agree with his assessment of the movie for many of the same reasons that he cited. So technically this review is half why I like the book and half why I hate the movie to The Shining. So I guess you can call this a-book-and-movie-review.




Now the movie is visually impressive, I won't deny it. The way the Overlook appears is alternatively warm and inviting as a hotel should be and imposing and terrifying as a haunted house should be. Some of the horror sequences such as the woman in Room 237 (217 in the book) and the eerie Grady Sisters are excellent in their ability to produce chills. Stanley Kubrick did some impressive film work on the project. But that's all the movie is, visual with nothing that takes us inside, nothing to tell us about the Hotel, it's residents, or the Torrance Family.

It turns what is a tightly constrained book about a family haunted by their internal demons and the ones at the Hotel into a mish-mash of scenes that could be anything and mean nothing unless you read the book first. (No wonder why the movie produces some off the wall analysis by film historians and fans who ponder its meaning from the genocide of the Native Americans to Kubrick's reported admission or apology for his alleged staging of the Moon landing.)




The plot, for the five people who don't know is: Jack Torrance, a writer, husband, and father has been hired as a caretaker for the Overlook Hotel in Colorado. He is suffering from writer’s block, is recovering from alcoholism, and feels guilty over breaking his son’s arm in a drunken binge and hitting a kid while sober costing him a teaching job. He takes his wife, Wendy and son, Danny to Colorado as they endure the wintry off-season.

While at the Hotel, each of the family deals with their own emotional crisis as well as the Overlook's guests, some of which, to paraphrase the Eagles, checked out any time they liked, but never left. Wendy has to deal with her conflicting feelings for Jack wanting to help him, but also fearing the alcoholic he once was. She also recalls the emotional abuse from her mother and is envious of the bond Jack and Danny share that seems to not include her.

Danny has a power that he barely understands in which he can read his parent's minds, especially in times of emotional stress, and talks to an invisible friend, Tony, that gives him creepy visions of blood and death. Danny is afraid of being “taken away” so he keeps the secret to himself except in front of Dick Halloran, the Hotel's chef who also has the ability which he calls The Shining.

Jack has to deal with his guilt about his past actions that combat his desire to protect his family and longing for a drink. As Jack tries to fight his inner demons, he becomes obsessed with the Overlook's history and encounters its late spirits particularly Lloyd, a bartender that satisfies Jack's thirst for alcohol and Grady, the former caretaker who murdered his own family, including his daughters, before committing suicide. Grady influences Jack's temper and urges him to “punish” his family and give them their “medicine.”




Among the many issues I have with the movie is casting Jack Nicholson in the lead role. Because of his performances in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Chinatown (the former which I also liked the book better than the movie but the latter I actually liked), already gave Nicholson the reputation of playing off-the-wall crazy potentially dangerous characters, a reputation that grew in films like Witches of Eastwick, Batman, and As Good As It Gets. The second he walks into his interview with the Hotel manager, Ullman, he is barely restraining rage. (While in the book, he doesn't like Ullman but keeps his thoughts to himself because hey he needs this job.) The conflict that Jack goes through is that he wants to be a good husband and father but can't resist his addictions and urges. Nicholson's performance seems to have no such conflict. He is bullying and domineering all the way through. They are barely in the Overlook before Nicholson's Jack is practically measuring his family for cemetery plots. With his hammy bombastic performance, a gripping book about a troubled family of three becomes the Jack Nicholson Show.




Make that the Stanley Kubrick/Jack Nicholson Show. Another issue in acting that I have is Shelley Duvall's portrayal of Wendy but less because of her but because of what Kubrick put her through to get that performance. The book version is strong in her own right and though she realizes that she is in an abusive marriage that she can't get out of, she is active and willing to challenge Jack both physically and verbally. Just as Jack is dangerous from the beginning in the movie, Wendy is passive and emotional as well. While Duvall depicts a woman in an abusive marriage, the book version reveals that it isn't the whole story that Jack recognizes the monster in himself and wants to repress it and Wendy alternates with loving and hating Jack for his actions. Plus much of Wendy's motives for staying in the marriage such as having to face her equally abusive mother are removed making Duvall's decision to remain with Jack almost a masochistic one.




Unfortunately, much of Duvall's fragility and emotional performance was not by choice but by the abuse given to her by Kubrick. According to many accounts, Kubrick put Duvall through untold physical and psychological stress that caused her hair to fall out and her body to become dehydrated from the tears she cried. He also re-shot the scene where she swings a baseball bat at Nicholson over 100 times with the intent of making her disoriented. Why is it that in most jobs if a boss acts like a total jackass to his employees, he is held accountable for it and would be rightly unemployed and charged for it? But when a director like Kubrick and Alfred Hitchcock abuses his female actresses to get a “performance” out of them, he is hailed as a legend and is considered above criticism for his behavior? People like Shelley Duvall are actors, they act. That's what they do. A director doesn't have to resort to such theatrics. If they want a performance, the actor will give it. If not, they should get another one.




There are other issues with the book-to-movie transition. The movie version of Tony is a creepy character that moves inside Danny's finger and may be an evil conscience making him do bad things. The book version is more explainable and is connected to Danny's shining ability. It is a mental depiction of his older self (We later learn Danny's full name is Daniel Anthony Torrance) that is trying to protect Danny and see him through the troubles he is going through. Even the Overlook ghosts are given more depth. The woman in the bathtub? She was a woman who was in a relationship with the former manager and committed suicide. The tuxedoed man having sex with a man in a dog suit? They were the manager and a male lover in a dominant/submissive relationship. The hedge animals? They are manifestations of the Hotel's ghosts and Grady and Jack's anger. Without the book's context, the film just turns them into set pieces for Kubrick to show off his directing ability. (Though I do miss the Grady Sisters. They aren't in the book at all, though their father is.)

Also the movie destroys the ending where Jack's humanity remains long enough to get Wendy, Danny, and Halloran (who receives a telepathic .message from Danny to save him. In the book, he survives to become Danny's teacher but the movie makes his subplot pointless by killing him off.) to safety. Since we already know from the get-go Movie Jack has no redeemable qualities whatsoever he freezes to death outside the Overlook becoming one of its ghostly inhabitants. So what made him a subtle nuanced character slowly succumbing to madness, instead turns him into a loud obnoxious manic character who has no depth at all.




The Shining is among King’s best books. (My favorite is still Carrie), but the movie is a visually impressive film with little depth. It took what was good about the book and minimized it. The worst part is that it receives praise for doing so.

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.