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The Witches by Stacy Schiff

Historical fiction

The Witches

by Stacy Schiff

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Quick take

A compulsively gripping and deliciously fun page-turner, filled with gossip, deceit, suspicion, and lots of creepiness.

Why I love it

I can't explain my obsession with the Puritans, but I know I have one, and I know I'm not alone. The strictness of the Puritan culture in the early days of American history has a sordid mystical quality that endlessly fascinates me. Just when I thought I'd read everything about colonial Massachusetts, along comes this latest tour-de-force from Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Stacy Schiff. Perfect as a post-Halloween recovery, Schiff's rich social history is a compulsively gripping and deliciously fun page-turner, filled with gossip, deceit, suspicion, and lots of creepiness.

Like me, you will have to throw out much of what you thought you knew about the notorious witch trials. According to Schiff there is more misinformation about this American tragedy than actual facts. So, you will marvel, as I did, at how exhaustively and painstakingly Schiff recreates 17th century Salem—its fear and dread, hysteria and isolation, misogyny and madness. The Witches is also one of the most seamlessly colorful and atmospheric books I've read in some time. Against a backdrop of devastating winter, villagers revel in rumors and accusations are tossed like rutabaga stems, as ministers plot to keep a firm grip on their flock.

As the best-selling biographer of Cleopatra and Vera Nabokov, Schiff has a particular ability to bring to life historical figures in a rich environment. Salem is a playground of complex and fascinating people, with more characters than one could find in a Tarantino film. She reaps gold in particular with church minister George Burroughs, a villain out of the Simon Legree School of Baddies. Schiff's premise is that the nine-month trial wasn't about witchcraft or sorcery but rather an effort by Burroughs to instill fear and control throughout villages, particularly over young women.

Although you may think you know how this story ends, Schiff delivers a doozy of a conclusion that will keep you flipping pages long past bedtime.

Member ratings (218)

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View all
Lady Tan’s Circle of Women
The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern
The Women
Husbands & Lovers
Shelterwood
A Thousand Times Before
All We Were Promised
Spitting Gold
The Seventh Veil of Salome
The Mayor of Maxwell Street
The Great Divide
The Storm We Made
The Disappearance of Astrid Bricard
Lessons in Chemistry
The Frozen River
What We Kept to Ourselves
Take My Hand
The Last Russian Doll
The First Ladies
The House Is On Fire
River Sing Me Home
The Attic Child
Malibu Rising
The Book of Longings
Hester
The Final Revival of Opal & Nev
The Nightingale
Daisy Jones & The Six
The Lincoln Highway
The Secret Book of Flora Lea
Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?
The Circus Train
Peach Blossom Spring
Hang the Moon
Booth
The Good Left Undone
The Perishing
The Family
Things We Lost to the Water
The Spectacular
Still Life
Send for Me
The Magnolia Palace
The Bookbinder
China Room
This Tender Land
Atomic Love
All the Light We Cannot See
The Vanishing Half
Outlawed
The Four Winds
Independence
The Fountains of Silence
Libertie
Queen of Thieves
The Great Believers
The Clockmaker's Daughter
A Gentleman in Moscow
The Great Alone
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
The Heart’s Invisible Furies
Rules of Civility
Circling the Sun
The Moor's Account
Jacqueline in Paris
Don't Cry for Me
The Christie Affair
Bloomsbury Girls
The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle
Bronze Drum