ceallaighsbooks 's review for:

The Witches: Salem, 1692 by Stacy Schiff

4.0

dark emotional informative sad tense fast-paced

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[Review from May 13 2020]

“It turns out to be eminently useful to have a disgrace in your past; Salem endures not only as a metaphor but as a vaccine and a taunt. It glares at us when fear paralyzes reason, when we overreact or overcorrect, when we hunt down or deliver up the alien or seditious. It endures in its lessons and our language.”

I very much enjoyed reading Schiff’s historical treatment of the Salem witch trials of 17th c. America. It’s a long read for sure, and it may feel a bit repetitive at times but really that’s just because so much information is covered and there are so many different players that it helps to be reminded as to who everyone is when they essentially move off and onto the stage.

There is also a bit of jumping back and forward through time so the chronology can be a bit tricky to navigate here and there but really Schiff does such an amazing job consolidating and analyzing her extensive research on this topic.

And her writing style is really eloquent and even a bit funny at times. She’s definitely the kind of author who combines a very high academic / historian IQ with the talent to make the material she is dealing with digestible and even entertaining to the average reader.

This book demonstrated why the common reaction of anger towards the preadolescent children accusers is mostly misplaced. It is clear (pp 133+) that these children were a product of severe emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and of course, violently physical, abuse at the hands of their parents, ministers, and town elders.

The last two chapters are the most interesting, detailing what happened after the trials and murders were over.

I still can’t believe that none of the men responsible for how far all of this went were ever held to account or faced any kind of reckoning whatsoever. I think it is really important that we are clear today about where the real evil lay in those events. 🤨

I very much appreciate Schiff doing all that reading and research and writing this book so that I could have access to all the information I could ever want about these events without having to do all that research myself. 😅 I’m sure I will consult and reread this book for the rest of my life.

I’m *tempted* to give it five stars because it is in fact a perfectly executed historical nonfiction book… buttt I think I’ll stick with four because it just didn’t have the overt feminism I was hoping for 😂 (even though that’s what makes it a perfect objective historical book. I’m the worst. 🤷🏼‍♀️) However I am absolutely looking forward to reading her book on Cleopatra soon!

I’ve also added this book to my Book List called “Witchery Way” on my bookshop dot org shop! Link in bio!

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