Deliverance From EvilFrances Hill
Overlook, March 2011
ISBN: 978-1590204702
In Deliverance from Evil, Frances Hill brings her deep historical and political understanding together with her honed skills as a novelist to produce a picture of the Salem witch trials both realistic and emotional.
In this fictional dramatization by Frances Hill, a British historian who has written several nonfiction books about the events, the cause isn’t mass hysteria as others have posited, but vengeance and simple malice.
The seeds of the hysteria that afflicted Salem Village, Massachusetts were sown in January 1692. The unordained Rev. George Burroughs and his closest friend, Capt. Peter White, are living in the remote settlement of Wells. George Burroughs, the Harvard-educated former pastor of Salem Village barely escapes the attack on the settlement at York with a young woman named Mary Cheever. Meanwhile, in Salem, Mass., Burroughs's former parish, two young girls are seated by the fire and playing at fortune-telling, and what starts as a game sends one of the girls into a hysterical frenzy. The physicians called in to examine the girls could find no natural cause of the disturbing behavior. If the source of the affliction was not attributable to a physical malady, the community reasoned that it must be the work of Satan. Witches had invaded Salem.
Frances Hill has done her research, and she does a beautiful job of depicting the harsh realities of life during this time. This harshness is partly what fuels the trials' momentum, as a fearful community struggles with the causes of their suffering. Surely there must be some offense, some sin, that God is punishing them for? In their desperation, they seek out the 'sinners' amongst them, literally demonizing their own neighbors for the smallest of offenses. They seek to scapegoat and purge - as so many have done in the name of religion throughout history.
Historical accuracy is one of the most important aspects of a book like this, Hill's writing is clear and insightful, and many of the people in the story are made very real. A remarkable achievement. The 'witches' come alive in this book, not as stereotypes, but as real women living in a society that suspected and feared their independence and combativeness. Deliverance From Evil is chilling. Reading this book reminds us that open-mindedness and willingness to embrace the unknown should be traits that we all share. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to learn more about this horrible period in our history.
FRANCES HILL is a historian, novelist and journalist whose previous books include Out of Bounds, A Delusion of Satan, The Salem Witch Trials Reader, Hunting for Witches, and Such Men Are Dangerous. Frances Hill lives in Connecticut.
