Book Review - Ami McKay's The Witches of New York
The Witches of New York by Ami McKay
Published by: Harper Perennial
Publication Date: July 11th, 2017
Format: Kindle, 537 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)
New York City in 1880 is thrumming with change. Even upstate in Stony Point Beatrice Dunn can feel the call. She intends to travel to New York City to answer an ad for a job; "Respectable Lady Seeks Dependable Shop Girl. Those averse to magic need not apply." She can feel it in her bones that this is her destiny. Though getting to New York is another matter entirely. It's as if the world, or at least the railway, is plotting against her. Why does Cleopatra's Needle have to be travelling on the rails the same day she needs to be somewhere? She manages to make it to 933 Broadway near Madison Square Park but it is long after the time she was supposed to be there. While the proprietresses of Tea and Sympathy are nowhere to be found a raven allows her entrance and, despite not believing in the otherworldly, Beatrice meets a ghost. Which is where the daughter of said ghost finds her. Eleanor St. Clair owns the shop with Adelaide Moth. Eleanor was trained by her French mother in the arcane specializing as an herbalist while Beatrice is a seer and can tell fortunes but is still scarred from an attack that took her eye. Eleanor was unaware that Beatrice had placed an ad for a shop girl but when she finds poor Beatrice passed out on the floor with her familiar Perdu keeping watch she has no option but to nurse the girl back to health. Needless to say, Beatrice got the job. What's more, she might be a witch like her two employers. Adelaide has encountered an alienist, Dr. Quinn Brody, whose father has recently passed and who studied all things spiritual. His father had invented a spiritoscope to commune with the dead and which Beatrice was able to use successfully. They plan a public demonstration to show what skills Beatrice has to offer for their clients while also tending to said clients' needs. They bring succor and sustenance to the women who come to their shop. They offer them a place to be safe while also being true to themselves. Being a woman in New York City is hard when you have bible-thumpers on every cover decrying the sins of women. Their small community is all they have and they welcome Beatrice into it. Though she is young and some might think they are taking advantage of that youth. One such person is Reverend Townsend. He saw Beatrice in Madison Square Park and feels that he must save her. One has to ask, what does he think that looks like? Because a man trying to control a woman might go to very dark lengths to do what he thinks is right. And Reverend Townsend has gone to dark lengths before.
When someone says a book is in the "vein" of Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell I should, by now, be savvy enough to know that this is hyperbole. Because no book can come close to that masterpiece, the best it can do is make me love it for itself. Needless to say this book did neither of those things and felt to me like a story in search of its own identity. Did it want to be cozy? Did it want to be cruel? The Witches of New York just couldn't decide and has such an overwhelming identity crisis that I can almost not reconcile the two main themes of female empowerment and male violence. The problem is that the female empowerment takes the shape of tea and ghosts and magic while the male violence is the Reverend murdering women in his basement. Yes, violence against women is very timely, and while this is set in a cozy tea shop, women's rights have never been cozy, they've been plagued by violence and danger and by the Reverends of the world, and yet I felt like Ami McKay was leaning into that cozy vibe. Yes, women need a safe space, but at the same time, by making this book ooze the ambiance of Caleb Carr's The Alienist, I just didn't know how to process it. I felt like I was experiencing whiplash in real time. I mean, I'm sure someone could pull off a book that is Ragtime meets The Master and Margarita but it is not Ami McKay. I mean, dropping a demon in the middle of all this almost seemed farcical. But then again, so much of this book just felt like it needed a second look. For example let's talk about Adelaide Moth. Adelaide Moth has this elaborate backstory. You think you're going to get it here, well, you'd be wrong. Because for a reason that defies comprehension she is actually the protagonist of another of Ami McKay's books, The Virgin Cure. While I have't read The Virgin Cure yet, by having her backstory in another book which I might point out I didn't realize until the end of this book made me feel cheated. I literally felt that I was only getting half the story. And I was. But then again, I don't know if I'll ever figure out who Perdu is, so this book tends to leave you in the dark. And what's infuriating is that Ami McKay says that it's obvious. I'm sorry random poster on Goodreads who said I "need to read or re-read pages 130-133, part of the story of the princess who was cursed. She learns the [n]ame of the demon who faces her and has him grant her a wish." This did not help. Nothing about this book helped. It could have been either this gritty history of New York and magic in the vein of The Alienist which it was close to becoming or gone for cozy Legends and Lattes level cuteness. Instead it's stuck between two states and is like a caterpillar trapped in it's chrysalis that will never become a moth or a butterfly.
The wonderful thing about New York, aside from an amazing literary history that can be found in the haunts of all the authors that have walked the streets of this thriving metropolis, is that the city has amazing institutes where the works of these great authors are housed. I'm talking about libraries folks! Now, because you are just visiting New York do not think this rules out libraries. Yes, you do have to live there and have a library card to check out books, but that doesn't mean you can't check out the buildings (and the gift shops)! New York City has some of the most beautiful and iconic libraries in the world. Of course there are the more functional and drab libraries, but the main branch, it is truly worthy of it's title as the third largest library in the world. The great edifice is located at 5th Avenue and West 42nd Street, where it is guarded over by Patience and Fortitude, the great lions that any bibliophile should recognize, have they been to New York or not, I mean just look at this month's themed banner. 
But you know what the best part about libraries is? Unlike almost every other location I have mentioned you get to enter and not stand outside imagining what the interior is like! Though I bet the lions would keep you company if you were to remain outside. The entrance hall is that worthy of a grand mansion. While the main hall doesn't have that much natural light, the candelabras give you a sense of entering another world. The hush throughout the building is uncanny. The first time I went to this library it was bucketing down outside and despite being soaking wet and having squeaky shoes I was compelled to walk silently, no matter how hard that feat was. 
One thing I do regret about my visit was that I was a little too worried to disturb others to look at some of the amazing reading rooms. If you are quiet and polite, I don't think anyone is going to mind. This is the Rose Main Reading Room. This room is almost two city blocks long and brilliant murals line the ceiling of the most heavenly of skies. Here too you are walking in the steps of great authors. Norman Mailer, Elizabeth Bishop, and E.L. Doctorow have all worked under this painted sky. 
What I love most about this edifice is that this kind of detail and grandeur is usually more associated with seats of government, like my State Capital, yet here it is all for knowledge and books! This ceiling is the McGraw Rotunda (though ironically rectangular in shape). Edward Laning did this amazing series of murals as part of the WPA initiative. The concept is The Story of the Recorded Word, from Moses descending with the ten commandments, to Gutenberg showing his famous bible. But overhead Prometheus brings to mankind fire and knowledge stolen from the gods, for which he would be eternally punished. But it still makes a great mural!
The holy grail among libraries in New York though has to be the Morgan Library. The Morgan Library is located at 225 Madison Avenue, between East 36th and 37th Street. This was originally built as the private library of J.P. Morgan, but is now a museum. This is the number one place I want to visit in New York. For the span of years in which I was more frequently visiting New York the library was closed due to a huge renovation project, but thankfully it is now open. What I find amazing is just the number of original manuscripts housed here. Manuscripts that you would think would be elsewhere, like three Gutenberg Bibles, Shelley's notebook, Balzac's works! But then it never does to have preconceptions of where things should be, I should know better then to think Shelley's notebook is somewhere in Italy where he tragically died, after all, who would think all of Tolkien's manuscripts are in Milwaukee, Wisconsin? And yes, I have seen them.
I love looking at the "Old Tyme" pictures in black and white before the restoration. This is the library as it was when Doctorow wrote about it in Ragtime. There is something that makes me think of Citizen Kane with the large and opulent fireplace and just the piles and piles of books. At least they are stored nicer then in all those crates in Xanadu.
But what do I really think when I see pictures of this library? Well, my opinion is twofold. One is, OMG the Library from Beauty and the Beast is real. Two is, why won't someone give me a library like this? I mean, in all seriousness, I don't have to have all the original manuscripts, I mean that would be nice... but just to have a place like this? Dream come true! I could easily fit all my books in there and have room for tons more! Like literally, the books could weigh a ton and I'd still have enough space!
And if ever the main room was too opulent and I wanted to slum it a little, there's the "Red Room." All Victorian and lush. Why aren't we building libraries like this anymore? Yes, I know that there are still beautiful libraries being built, but none have that steeped in feeling of history and the gravitas of these two examples. And the best part? These are but two examples! New York has so many other libraries to explore you could spend your entire trip there just going from library to library. Sneaking into the Cooper Hewitt not to see the Design Museum but to go to the gift shop which used to be Andrew Carnegie's library that overlooked Central Park. Little gems like this are out there for you to find and I hope that one day you get the chance to find them!
