Scan barcode
A review by xterminal
The Afflicted Girls by Nicole Cooley
3.0
Nicole Cooley, The Afflicted Girls (Louisiana State University, 2004)
Nicole Cooley starts here from a popular point in American mythology, the Salem witch trials. When you're tackling something that's been done so many times, you have to take a different tack than others have. Cooley elects to spend much of the book telling the tales from the points of view of some of the more minor characters. Everyone's shown us the Salem witch trials from the points of view of the accusers, the Mathers, etc. But when did you last see the story from the point of view of, for example, Giles Corey, who was pressed to death, or Nathaniel Cary, who broke his wife out of prison and helped her escape? Later on in the volume, Cooley leaves the confines of both Salem and the seventeenth century and draws comparisons between the Salem trials and other incidents in the country's history as well:
“...Heat drums against
their necks. They want to believe a spirit
can lift them out of themselves. They want
to believe they lift each other. Light
as a feather.”
(“The Afflicted Girls, New Orleans, 1978”)
It's solidly-written and it works. Worth checking out if you run across it at the store. *** ½
Nicole Cooley starts here from a popular point in American mythology, the Salem witch trials. When you're tackling something that's been done so many times, you have to take a different tack than others have. Cooley elects to spend much of the book telling the tales from the points of view of some of the more minor characters. Everyone's shown us the Salem witch trials from the points of view of the accusers, the Mathers, etc. But when did you last see the story from the point of view of, for example, Giles Corey, who was pressed to death, or Nathaniel Cary, who broke his wife out of prison and helped her escape? Later on in the volume, Cooley leaves the confines of both Salem and the seventeenth century and draws comparisons between the Salem trials and other incidents in the country's history as well:
“...Heat drums against
their necks. They want to believe a spirit
can lift them out of themselves. They want
to believe they lift each other. Light
as a feather.”
(“The Afflicted Girls, New Orleans, 1978”)
It's solidly-written and it works. Worth checking out if you run across it at the store. *** ½