electricjuicebox 's review for:

Killing the Witches: The Horror of Salem, Massachusetts by Bill O'Reilly, Martin Dugard

1.5

dark informative slow-paced

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I did not enjoy this book at all and forced myself to finish it, but the author’s note at the end turned my reaction into immediate disgust - pardon the lengthy review while I vent about it. 

So, despite the book’s title, only the first half of this book is actually about the Salem witch trials. The middle part of the book gives us a biography of Benjamin Franklin and the founding of the United States of America with the goal of emphasizing that America was founded on the basis of religious freedoms. The latter part tells the story of teenager Ronald Hunkeler’s demonic possession and subsequent exorcism in the 1940s, on which the book and film The Exorcist are based. Despite what the dust jacket advertises, I don’t think the book tried very hard to tie these sections together in a thematic way until the Afterword section, and it’s super weird that it’s branded as a book about witch hunts when it’s really all over the place. I understand this is a part of a larger “Killing xyz” series and I wonder if some of the other books are like this, or did the authors just not care too much about the witch trial component but knew the topic would draw people in? I felt like I was sold an entirely different book than what I ended up reading. 

The writing is very informative, but the victims of the witch trials all kind of blend together and the writing feels impersonal and uncaring. It’s just a lot of things happening, one after the other, with not a lot of meaning or reflection. It feels like the authors care much more about the other two parts of the book than the titular section. The one real plus for me was that it’s educational! I definitely learned some things. I was really expecting more connections to Salem in the latter parts of the book... I understand thematically why the section about the founding fathers was there, but it wasn't reflected in the text. The part about the exorcism felt even less on topic. 

So I was already not enjoying the book, but to make matters much worse, the author's note at the end of the book goes completely off the rails and Bill O'Reilly draws direct comparisons between modern day cancel culture and the Salem witch hunts despite the latter two parts of the book not really being about "witch hunts" at all, citing JK Rowling, Roseanne Barr and Doug Adler as examples. 

A direct quote: "Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling was demonized for promoting traditional gender. The trans fanatics immediately called for her symbolic lynching, so much so that there is a podcast entitled The Witch Trials of JK Rowling.” I think he’s missing the obvious witchcraft/Harry Potter joke in that podcast title, but it sounds a lot like he’s defending Rowling - in 2023 no less. I am less familiar with the other examples he highlights, but Rowling at least has been so bold in promoting her transphobic views in a way that’s going to lead to vulnerable people being hurt that the comparison to innocent victims in Salem feels inappropriate.

O’Reilly argues that …”the spirit of no forgiveness and celebrating unproven allegations binds the modern cancel culture and Salem together. Instead of insane clerics and corrupt officials, our current witch hunt is led by dishonest media, both traditional and social, and a legion of despicable attorneys…” etc etc etc. The one point we agree upon is that it's wrong to accuse people of bigotry, unsocial behaviour, etc. without proof. But while this isn’t the angle the authors take, from my perspective the witch trials seem like a clear tragedy with the victims primarily being women who were otherwise powerless in Puritanical New England society. Is it not kind of offensive, or at least insensitive, to compare the deaths of nineteen innocent people to being canceled by social media for being openly and unapologetically transphobic or racist (especially when we know that privileged people like Rowling don’t really face real world consequences from being canceled)? This is clearly not an issue I would agree with the author on, but it feels like he shoehorned his modern day political views in at the end of the book for no reason except to yell at his audience about it. If he wanted to make this point, he should have tried harder to do it in the actual text of the book. Super weird!!*

*Edit: I just looked up Bill O'Reilly, having been unfamiliar with him prior to reading this book... yeah, I'm not surprised that a guy who settled a bunch of lawsuits accusing him of sexual misconduct is against cancel culture. 

 

Anyway, there have got to be better resources out there on this topic!! Don’t read this book.