Book Review - Katherine Howe's The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane
The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe
Published by: voice
Publication Date: May 22nd, 2009
Format: Hardcover, 371 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)
Connie is exultant, and a little drunk. But she did it. And her body is being bombarded by relief and fatigue in equal measures after a night at Abner's to celebrate passing the ordeal of her oral doctoral examination. Hours spent answering questions and the final one, from her advisor Manning Chilton, was a gift; "please provide the committee with a succinct and considered history of witchcraft in North America." And now she has moved from apprentice to colleague. Since she first entered the PhD program at Harvard she finally feels secure and validated. Of course moments later Manning Chilton brings her down to Earth by asking her if she's chosen a dissertation topic for her doctorate yet stressing the importance of newly uncovered primary sources. She's spent a year preparing for her qualifying exam, she needs at least one night off, and that night off is spent at Abner's. Stumbling home she thinks how nothing can taint this moment of triumph, so when she sees that her roommate Liz has left a not saying that Connie's mother Grace has called Connie feels how right things are with the world. Even her mother remembered the importance of today. After a lifetime of experience with Grace Connie should have known better. Because Grace had no idea why today was important and instead was calling Connie for a favor. Grace's childhood home in Marblehead needs to be cleared out and sold due to a change in the law. Grace hasn't paid the property taxes since Connie's Granna died twenty years earlier and the house has just been sitting there. Connie doesn't know why but she agrees to take on the task. She should be spending the summer working on her dissertation and instead is stuck at number three Milk Street. A house so enshrouded in vines that at first she didn't even see it. What's more, there's no telephone or electricity. Thankfully there's running water, but that's just by sheer luck. On her first night there Connie finds a key in an old family bible with the name Deliverance Dane written on a scrap of paper inside it. There's something that draws her into this mystery and soon she realizes she's not just dealing with a forgotten victim of the Salem witch trials, but a forgotten victim that might have left behind a recipe book. Could this be her new primary source? A recipe book, an almanac, a physick book, a book of shadows, whatever you call it, this would be the only one of it's kind ever discovered on American soil. And with a connection to Salem! Soon she has a sexy steeplejack named Sam helping her and her advisor breathing down her neck. But the one person who she should be heeding is her mother. She knows more than she's letting on.
This is by no means a perfect book. Connie Goodwin is at time completely infuriating and feckless. She verges on the too dumb to live trope. I mean, I figured out the whole witches are real, she is descended from Deliverance Dane, and her family is cursed in love in about five minutes. But seeing as I'm reading a book and not living the experience I guess she could be forgiven for not believing in witches. After all her advisor asks her point blank if those accused in Salem could have been actually practicing witchcraft and she comes right out and says witches don't exist. So, she really doesn't believe in witches, and to be fair, this is set before The Craft, Charmed, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer and their witchy ways became ingrained in popular culture. So I'm giving her a pass in that regard. What I'm not giving her a pass on is her lackadaisical clearing of her Granna's house. Yes, there's some sort of magic that makes time drift away while within the house at number three Milk Street, but she has a job to do. The least she could do is look closer at the books and start the research for her dissertation, but instead she's all, I cleaned three jars four days ago, I'm tired. As someone who has done far more than her fair share of clearing out offices, homes, and apartments, her lack of work ethic just grated on me. Again, magical atmosphere, whatever, don't be proud you washed a few plates and instead of boxing them for sale or storage you put them back on the shelf! This is a tiny little house in Marblehead, Massachusetts, and she has over three months. I've done a farm house that my family lived in for generations in under a month. I've done an office filled to the brim with tat in only three days. I admit it was three days of no sleep and using all my downtime to watch the first season of Riverdale, you know, back when it was good, but I did the impossible in three days. Connie wouldn't have even done three jars in that amount of time. Also, can we talk about the fact that she ends up dating a steeplejack that specializes in restoration and she doesn't have him look at the house and do an estimate on what it would take to fix it up. In particular the board in the hall that is literally growing mushrooms! She's supposed to be getting this house ready for sale! Or, in my more generous moments, I think maybe it was actually purposefully organized by her mother as a trap for her to learn the truth and the property taxes were just a convenient ruse. And yet this book sunk in it's claws and wouldn't let go of me. What fascinated me here, and what will always fascinate me, is language. The way it changes, how certain words mean certain things at certain times. How your world view changes the meaning. How maybe, from the point of view of a certain group of people at a certain time magic was possible. I couldn't help thinking about how Philippa Gregory said when she was writing The White Queen she wrote that magic was real because to the people it was. So no matter the flaws of Connie, the concept, the history, and the cunning women made me love this book.
Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman
I have always loved witches. Aside from a terrifying incident in second grade when my teacher read Roald Dahl's The Witches to us and then dressed as a witch for Halloween, thus convincing me that she, and the other primary teachers, were the witches from said book. AKA bad witches. Otherwise I was raised by a plethora of good witches, Mildred Hubble, Samantha Stephens, Louise Miller, Sabrina Spellman, Willow Rosenberg, and the Halliwell sisters. This primed me for the arrival of the Owens sisters in 1998. No one can deny the cultural impact of Practical Magic. Who amongst us hasn't daydreamed about living in the Owens house? And who amongst us hasn't dreamed of a sequel? After all, over twenty years after she wrote Practical Magic Alice Hoffman came out with a prequel, The Rules of Magic. Followed by two more books in the series in the following years. She knew we needed more Owenses in our lives and finally we are getting more Owenses on the big screen. That's right people. If you've been living under a rock and don't know it, we're finally getting Practical Magic 2, based on the four book in Alice Hoffman's series. There will be midnight margaritas aplenty on September 10th. I couldn't let this milestone go unacknowledged and therefore a threw together my own little party, lots of Owenses and lots of other witches, Mayfairs, Bishops, Goodwins, fictional heroines descended from Salem. And no, not the cat. So here's to the Season of the Witch! Cue 
The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
