Skip to main content

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe


First of all, as a person who has always been interested in names and their origins and meanings, I'd just like to say that the name Deliverance Dane is awesome. Truly awesome--and according to the author's note at the end of the book, it belonged to a real person involved in the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 in Massachusetts. Deliverance Dane. I love that name.

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane is the debut novel of Katherine Howe, a doctoral candidate in American and New England Studies. In 1991, Connie, a Harvard graduate student just beginning her doctoral dissertation research in American colonial history and culture, is coerced by her mother into cleaning up her grandmother's ancient house in Marblehead, Massachusetts. When Connie arrives, the house is in near ruins, having stood empty for about twenty years, the yard's herb and vegetable gardens are overgrown and the house lacks a phone and electricity. One evening Connie happens across an old key hidden in a family bible; the key is labelled with ancient parchment as belonging to one Deliverance Dane. Thus begins Connie's search for the identity of this woman; Connie's early research yeilds the name of Deliverance Dane on a 1692 list of excommunicated persons from the Salem church. She knows what this means: Dane was caught up in the tragedy and terror of the Salem Witch Trials of that year. But who was she and why was her name purged from history? Connie, plagued by puzzling, frightening visions, becomes determined to answer these questions. Interwoven with this story are chapters hearkening back to the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries that reveal the very beginnings of Dane's ordeal in the decade preceding the panic that spawned the witch trials, the trials, and Dane's trial's aftermath on the generations of Dane women immediately descended from Deliverance. How does Dane's story connect to Connie's present? Connie utilizes all her skills as a historian to trace the whereabouts of Dane's spellbook as it is passed down the generations mother to daughter.

With a gripping story firmly rooted in research the intriguing, fascinating and heartbreaking history of the Salem Witch Trials is intermingled with several historical, cultural, anthropological and societal theories explaining the panic that gripped such a small town. The page turning suspense carries the reader quickly toward a heartpounding climax in which Connie realizes that both her history and her future are far more intertwined than she ever could have imagined.

This book is available here at the Matthews Public Library and also upon request from the Annville Free Library. I highly recommend that history buffs, family genealogical enthusiasts, or mystery lovers check it out.

--Reviewed by Ms. Angie

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

In The Woods by Tana French

"What I warn you to remember is that I am a detective. Our relationship with the truth is fundamental, but cracked, refracting confusingly like fragmented glass. It is the core of our careers, the endgame of every move we make, and we pursue it with strategies painstakingly constructed of lies ... and every variation on deception. The truth is the most desirable woman in the world and we are the most jealous lovers, reflexively denying anyone else the slightest glimpse of her. We betray her routinely ... This is my job ... What I am telling you, before you begin my story, is this--two things: I crave truth. And I lie." opening lines of In The Woods chapter 1, pages 3-4 In The Woods by Tana French, an Irish writer, is an extremely well-written and well-crafted mystery novel. The downside is that this is French's debut novel, and her website (located at http://www.tanafrench.com/ ) does not off...
24 comments
Read more

Broken by Karin Slaughter

Before I begin the formal review there are a few things I need to get off my chest in the wake of finishing this book; I'll do so without giving away too many (or any) spoilers. The OUTRAGE!: the identity of Detective Lena Adams' new beau; the low depths to which Grant County's interim chief has sunk and brought the police force down with him; agent Will Trent's wife, Angie's, sixth sense/nasty habit of reappearing in his life just when he's slipping away from her. Thank God for small miracles though because while Angie was certainly referred to during the book, the broad didn't make an appearance. One sign that I've become way too invested in these characters is that I'd like to employ John Connolly's odd pair of assassins, Louis and Angel, to contract out a hit on Angie; do you think Karin Slaughter and John Connolly could work out a special cross over? Hallelujah: Dr. Sara Linton and agent Will Trent are both back. There is no hallelujah fo...
3 comments
Read more

Generation Kill by Evan Wright and One Bullet Away by Nathaniel Fick

Non-fiction books aren't really my thing; generally, this is how my relationship goes with non-fiction books: I see a really interesting one, I borrow it, I start to read it, and then I ditch it a chapter or two later when the dry, boring writing and non-existent plot fail to hook me. However, this a review of two non-fiction books that I read back to back after a five year old three article series that I dug up on the internet; it was written by Evan Wright and preceded his book Generation Kill , which is basically a book version of the article series that he wrote and published in Rolling Stone Magazine . Recently HBO adapted Generation Kill into a mini-series that ran sometime last year; I got the series on DVD and in the midst of watching it, I decided I wanted to get my hands on the book to read. In the meantime, I stumbled across One Bullet Away by Nathaniel Fick, the lieutenant of the platoon that Wright embedded with, and I read that book while I waited for Generation K...
1 comment
Read more