The Last Witchfinder

The Last Witchfinder by James Morrow

Category: Historical (sort of) fiction Grade: A-

Why do great authors sometimes feel the need to introduce gimmicks in to their books? Usually, as soon as I hit gimmicks, I put the book down. Rarely do they work and, most often, they get in the way, killing any value the book might otherwise have. Fortunately, I didn't do that this time, mostly because I'm a big fan of James Morrow, one of the better satirical novelists writing today. The book that got me hooked on him was Towing Jehovah. Its just what the title implies -- God has died and his body is found in the South Pacific and is towed to a port throwing off all kinds of hilarious, though seriously sacreligious, events. Its the beginning of a trilogy that nevers stops being funny and a little off. Because of my past experience with Morrow, I plowed through the beginning of this book and I'm glad I did.

Morrow's gimmick is that the story in the book is actually told by another book, Newton's Principia Mathematica. According to the book, most books are actually written by other books. The Principia pops up every once in a while during Witchfinder to comment on whats going on. The gimmick doesn't work at all, but, thankfully, it makes up less than 5% of the book and can safely be ignored. The comments are occasionally funny, but unimportant to the story.

The story, on the other hand, is terrific - inventive, consistently interesting and very well written. It focuses on the life of a fictional Englishwoman, Jennet Stearne. Early in her life, she is being tutored in all subjects, especially, science, by her aunt. The book takes place in the early 18th century at the height of the efforts to find, prosecute and execute suspected witches. Jennet's father is a witchfinder - testing witches by looking for blemishes that don't bleed (the devil's mark) and by doing trial by drowning (water will reject witches) among other things. The father is extremely ambitious, aspiring to become the Royal Witchfinder. In the process, he trains his son to follow in his footsteps.

Getting back to Jennet - the defining moment in her life is when her adored aunt, having been accused of witchcraft by Jennet's father, is burned alive at the stake. Jennet swears that she will devote her life to creating a scientific proof that witchcraft doesn't exist. OK, I admit this doesn't sound very exciting so far but, as we follow this woman through the next 40 years or so of her life, the adventure accelerates. What emerges is a fantastic picture of both life during this time period and a pretty serious exposure on the mass hysteria of the witchfinding era.

We get to see life in colonial Massachusetts and in an Algonquin Indian village. Highly fictionalized versions of well known characters like Isaac Newton and a young (and surprisingly sexy) Ben Franklin successfully tie the story to the times. This is just a great piece of well written historical fiction. Skim the sections where the book talks (and some of the slightly technical stuff) and what you've got left is a really terrific read.