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Hearn, Julie - The Minister's Daughter
Fri, Dec. 22nd, 2006 02:40 pmThe lives of Patience and Grace Madden, daughters of the local minister, and that of Nell, granddaughter to the local midwife and cunning woman, intersect in a messy, witch-filled way in 1645.
When I read the description, I sort of rolled my eyes about yet another witch-hunting book. Usually a beautiful yet unconventional girl is accused of being a witch because her society hates her beautiful yet unconventional ways, even though she is a great healer/wonderful person/helps the poor/is a twentieth-century feminist back in the 1600s. This means the society is stupidly religious/misogynist/hate people who are different/just plain dumb.
Thankfully, this book nicely sidestepped my expectations. Nell is unconventional, but she's not beautiful. And better yet, she's unconventional in a way that generally doesn't make the villagers hate her. They all strongly believe in fairies and piskies and in Nell and her grandmother's cures, despite the new minister scoffing at all those things. And, in fact, that's a rather rational belief, given that piskies and fairies actually do exist in the world of the book.
The other neat thing was that while Grace is obviously lying through her teeth about witchery and doing it for all the normal petty reasons, Patience actually does believe in witchcraft and deals with the devil. I found this rather refreshing, given that many books with witchcraft elements in them tend to use a huge brush to paint associated witchhunters as un-PC vengeful people and don't examine how faith and religion plays a role in it as well.
The book is split between omniscient narration of the events of 1645 and Patience Madden's confession fifty years down the line. I have to admit, I thought it was more a gimmicky narrative device than anything else, but Hearn actually does use it to good effect in the end.
I was pleasantly surprised by this book, particularly by the ending, which gave me a little chill.
When I read the description, I sort of rolled my eyes about yet another witch-hunting book. Usually a beautiful yet unconventional girl is accused of being a witch because her society hates her beautiful yet unconventional ways, even though she is a great healer/wonderful person/helps the poor/is a twentieth-century feminist back in the 1600s. This means the society is stupidly religious/misogynist/hate people who are different/just plain dumb.
Thankfully, this book nicely sidestepped my expectations. Nell is unconventional, but she's not beautiful. And better yet, she's unconventional in a way that generally doesn't make the villagers hate her. They all strongly believe in fairies and piskies and in Nell and her grandmother's cures, despite the new minister scoffing at all those things. And, in fact, that's a rather rational belief, given that piskies and fairies actually do exist in the world of the book.
The other neat thing was that while Grace is obviously lying through her teeth about witchery and doing it for all the normal petty reasons, Patience actually does believe in witchcraft and deals with the devil. I found this rather refreshing, given that many books with witchcraft elements in them tend to use a huge brush to paint associated witchhunters as un-PC vengeful people and don't examine how faith and religion plays a role in it as well.
The book is split between omniscient narration of the events of 1645 and Patience Madden's confession fifty years down the line. I have to admit, I thought it was more a gimmicky narrative device than anything else, but Hearn actually does use it to good effect in the end.
I was pleasantly surprised by this book, particularly by the ending, which gave me a little chill.