The most talented Chris Bohjalian has turned a three-line reference from 1662 in the records of Boston’s Court of Assistants regarding a petition for divorce for cruelty into a powerful novel of historical fiction, Hour of the Witch.
Puritan Mary Deerfield seeks a dissolution of her marriage to Thomas Deerfield for what would be called domestic abuse today. He has cursed her, called her names, hit her, pushed her, and stabbed her with a dinner fork.
The three-tined dinner fork has come to Boston by way of Mary’s merchant father who says they are being used throughout Europe to accompany a knife and spoon. When two of these forks are found planted in Mary’s flowered dooryard, her servant Catherine accuses Mary of casting a spell with the “Devil’s tines.”
When the petition comes up for judgement in a magistrates’ court in Boston, Mary finds herself pitted between the ending of her marriage but possible condemnation as a witch, a crime punishable by hanging in this period three decades before the Salem witch trials. As a woman, Mary has very little power to fight for her freedom from her loathsome husband.
After the divorce petition has been decided, Mary ends up back in court condemned as a witch with the evidence stacking up against her. Only a Bohjalian plot twist might possibly save her as this fast-paced story races to the finish line.
Bohjalian is the best-selling author of 21 books, three of which have been made into movies. His books have been chosen as Best Books of the Year by the Washington Post, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Hartford Courant, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, BookPage, and Salon. He adapted his novel Midwives for a play which opened in January 2020. He has also written for magazines and newspapers. His daughter Grace Experience has narrated several of his books in audio form. He lives in Vermont with his wife, photographer Victoria Blewer.
My review will be posted on Goodreads starting February 11, 2021.
I would like to thank Doubleday Books for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.
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