Book Review: The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane
“The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane” by Katherine Howe marked the last book I finished before kicking off my beachy summer reads. While working on a short story set during the Salem Witch Trials, I realized that I have never actually written historical fiction; ironic, as it is my favorite genre to read. So I bought up some fantastic non-fiction books about witches and the Trials. (Not only did I have a blast researching, but there was the added bonus of being too lazy to change the name on the Amazon preset and my unsuspecting sister receiving an inexplicable stack of witch books addressed to her.) Even so, I still struggled with translating all of the facts and historical accounts into fictional elements.
One of my research sources was “The Penguin Book of Witches,” edited by none other than Katherine Howe. And so it came to be that, there, in my Amazon suggested purchases (next to a pineapple shower curtain and perfume for dogs) was this book. If the premise alone was not enough to entice me, Katherine Howe’s author bio had me practically camped next to the mailbox waiting for it to arrive.
Katherine Howe not only wrote this book while completing her Ph.D. in American and New England Studies and romping around the woods of Marblehead and Salem where she lived, but she is also a descendant of Elizabeth Proctor and Elizabeth Howe. Both women were accused during the Salem Witch Trials. Only one survived. I was so compelled by Howe’s deep connection to the book’s subject matter, and it did not disappoint in how it came through in her writing.
“The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane” primarily focuses on the protagonist, Connie Goodwin, as she starts the summer researching for her doctoral dissertation and preparing her grandmother’s dilapidated historic house for sale. While living in the house, Connie discovers the name “Deliverance Dane” under strange circumstances and becomes enthralled with finding her story. As she dives deeper and deeper into Deliverance’s (and her own) personal history, Connie is faced with the possibility that her logical and rational understanding of history, specifically the Salem Witch Trials, is not as cut and dry as she once believed. They may be a more significant part of her story than she ever imagined. Connie’s narrative is interwoven with interludes from the past, depicting Deliverance Dane, her experience in the Trials, and following her lineage over generations of women.
I’ll start with the main snags I hit with this book because they can be boiled down to two major things: the plodding pace of the first half and the character arc of the main villain.
It is not the most difficult time I’ve had getting into a book, but the first half of this novel does run slow. Katherine Howe does the setup work (introducing the leading players, laying the groundwork for future conflict, etc.) mostly within the first few chapters. Everything seems poised to take off… And then doesn’t.
A caveat to this is that the slower bits are where we find Connie doing a lot of research piecing together Deliverance’s story. I love research. I deeply enjoyed following Connie into libraries and iconic institutions of knowledge, flipping through card catalogs (the book is set in 1991 and is therefore blessedly devoid of mundane Googling). But while I do take borderline ASMR-like pleasure in the idea of poring over ancient documents and leafing through crinkly book pages, I was eventually dying for the story to move ahead. Once I was able to get into it, though (about midway), I was hooked.
There were plot elements in this book that were relatively predictable, but for the most part, I didn’t mind it, as there were also twists that I didn’t see coming. But the main villain felt like the obvious bad guy from the start, so when they were the actual bad guy, it just felt flat.
I also wasn’t sold on the antagonist’s devolution from simply unnerving to completely deranged. There just wasn’t enough setup to create a believable transition from this character’s introduction to their final violent escalation. Not only that, but I didn’t buy their end game playing out the way it did. I don’t feel that Katherine Howe set this character up with enough knowledge and foresight to have pulled off their master plan.
Like I said, I’m a sucker for research, and it is clear that this book is well within the author’s area of expertise. This novel is incredibly smart, and I learned countless things about a piece of history I thought I knew pretty well. Everything from realistic rituals to housing interior and Puritan culture is told with such accurate detail that I got a better understanding and appreciation for how life really was in Salem during the Witch Trials. Howe’s command of colonial speech even made it seem like I could hear their voices over the vast expanse of time. Nothing about this story feels novel, cheap, or cliche. The specificity and dedication to presenting the past as it really was made for an authentic and refreshing read.
Katherine Howe presents a fresh take on a subject that has been done and redone thousands of times over. The ideas and theories on the Trials prevalent throughout the book are rarely discussed points in popular articulations of the Salem Witch Trials. Whether intentional or not, casting the main character and most of the side-players as academics was a brilliant way to introduce scholarly and abstract content without disrupting the flow of the story. Howe is able to explore unexpected lines of thinking regarding religion, the supernatural, and society’s relationship with the Trials, and the inclusion of these topics dramatically enriches the story.
Lastly, in every aspect of this book, Katherine Howe pays the reverence and respect due to victims of the Witch Trials. When including real people in the story, which Howe often does, she does so with evident dedication to their character and the truth. She makes a point to emphasize the ways the Trials are treated as a cheap tourist attraction or trope. Without sounding too preachy, Howe reminds us that these were real people unjustly executed by their friends and neighbors. She brings their stories to life, carrying them over some 300 years as individuals with fears and hopes, not just names on an ancient list of the dead. This book is not a solemn recount of a past tragedy but a bold and honoring depiction of gifted, determined women. Howe writes them with integrity and throws into focus how their stories and values transcend into the present.
While it started slow and the antagonist development didn’t quite hit the mark, by the time I finished this book, I was all in. I not only learned new aspects of history but discovered different lenses through which to consider the history I thought I knew. I loved Howe’s scholarly yet approachable voice and her unique combinations of past and present, supernatural and historical, and reverent yet light.
Overall, everything came together well in the end, and I’d call this a great choice for my fellow history nerds and mystics.
Thumbnail Photo Credit: Home is Where the Boat Is
