The Afflicted GirlsSuzy Witten
Make sure to read our interview with Suzy Witten, author of The Afflicted Girls.
From the very first sentence, I was impressed with this book. The Afflicted Girls takes the familiar story of the Salem Village Witch Trials and gives it a chilling reality that will eclipse anything you have ever read or heard about it. Even more than that, it is brilliantly written. Suzy Witten, a screenwriter, brings to this novel all her skill at bringing the reader into a riveting tale.
The Afflicted Girls starts with two young women, Mercy and Abigail, on their way to Salem Village where Abigail is going to join her uncle, Rev. Parris's, household. Both are coming from life in an orphanage. An accident leads to the women being rescued by two young local men, one of which captures Mercy's heart immediately. Joseph is just back from England where his rich mother sent him, after having raised the sort of hell expected of a university student. Arrived in Salem Village, Abigail settles in to become the apple of her uncle's eye, while Mercy is placed in indenture to the bitter, lonely Putnam household. No, not Joseph's, but his resentful drunkard disinherited half brother. Abigail. we quickly learn, is a manipulative little bitch, while Mercy, who has some peculiar powers she keeps to herself, is the soul of kindness and brings what little joy there is to be into the Putnam children's lives.
The witchcraft arrives in the story as Mercy, smitten with Joseph, asks the local roadhouse keeper and "whore of Babylon", Bridget Bishop, for a love charm. Avbigail gets wind of the delicious secret. She has also discovered that the Parris's Caribbean slave has hidden some cakes made with a hallucinogenic plant, jimson weed, and that it does the most amazing things to the woman. Abigail, first with the slave's cakes and then with ones of her own making without the skill of the slave, starts passing them out. One girl after another, and one boy, start succumbing to the overdose and the hysteria about witches begins. For a complex variety of reasons including ambition, avarice, retribution, lust, and simple cruelty, the unhappy denizens not only of the Village but other towns in Massachusetts Colony begin the nightmare of the witchcraft trials which will culminate in the hanging of innocents.
One of the aspects of this novel I marveled at is Witten's use of language. The characters all speak with a feel of New England as it must have sounded in the late 1600s. She manages as well to weave the narration in such a way that the seamless intertwining of language works.
The characters are brilliantly drawn, few being perfectly sympathetic. Mercy has a strong sense of justice which she must repress in her place on the bottom of the power scale. Bridget is a free spirit who might be to generous with her special magical knowledge. The constable is an essentially good man doing his job, and he proves it by resigning when the charges Begin to be outrageous and obviously motivated by something other than religious devotion. The two slaves live in a separate world of their own, keeping out of and hoping to be overlooked in the village's excesses. The other characters are almost universally awful people, though Witten is not black and white in their portrayal. Ann Putnam is mad due to trauma of her own and the disappointments of her marriage, her husband Thomas is fatally bitter. Joseph is a self-indulgent vain man who is forced to sleep in the same bed with his mother. Parris is an incompetent minister, like Thomas bitterly aware of being cheated out his patrimony and knowing he is about to lose yet another job. The adolescents are confused and powerless to understand their own growing sexuality. Abigail, who saw her family butchered by Indians, is a sociopath who probably is incapable of recognizing the horror she unleashes.
The fiction is excellent, but the attention to historical detail is as well. The transcripts of the trials make their appearance in the narrative most expertly.
The Afflicted Girls is both a highly entertaining read and a real-life horror story. Witten chose to publish independently, a courageous step full of integrity, and as a result offers the lie to any belief that 'self-published" books cannot be superb. Someone, please, het a copy of The Afflicted Girls into Oprah's hands!
The book was just released this past week. It is only available in print at this point. Visit http://www.theafflictedgirls.com for more information on availability. Disclosure: The author provided a digital copy of her novel for this review.
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