[An] intrepid, impeccably researched epic . . . [a] tour-de-force of early America.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“An exceptionally engaging and piquantly thoughtful novel.” — Library Journal
“This impeccably researched, highly ambitious novel — nine years in the writing — is a triumph of historical fiction.” — Booklist (starred review)
“Read[s] like a collaboration between Charles Dickens and Henry Fielding...Morrow is long overdue for a mainstream audience.” — Denver Post
“A book to delight fans of writers such as John Barth and T.C. Boyle. Or even Jonathan Swift.” — USA Today
“[A] richly detailed, cerebral tale of rationality versus superstitious bigotry.” — Fort Wayne (IN) Journal Gazette
“Endlessly exciting ... A grand picaresque tour of England and the American colonies ... Watch out for James Morrow: He’s magic.” — Washington Post Book World
“Here are storytelling, showmanship and provocative book-club bait, all rolled into one inventive feat.” — New York Times
“Grim and gorgeous, earthy and erudite as well.” — Seattle Times
“Morrow seamlessly weaves fantasy with science and historical fact in one of the best novels of the year.” — Rocky Mountain News
“Dazzling . . . [A]n extravagant, expansive, erudite, energetic feast of information and adventure.” — Daily Telegraph (London)
“This lively and thoughtful adventuer is filled with enough satire and plot to fuel two Mark Twain tomes.” — Pages Magazine
Endlessly exciting ... A grand picaresque tour of England and the American colonies ... Watch out for James Morrow: He’s magic.
Washington Post Book World
This impeccably researched, highly ambitious novel — nine years in the writing — is a triumph of historical fiction.
Booklist (starred review)
A book to delight fans of writers such as John Barth and T.C. Boyle. Or even Jonathan Swift.
Here are storytelling, showmanship and provocative book-club bait, all rolled into one inventive feat.
Read[s] like a collaboration between Charles Dickens and Henry Fielding...Morrow is long overdue for a mainstream audience.
Grim and gorgeous, earthy and erudite as well.
Morrow seamlessly weaves fantasy with science and historical fact in one of the best novels of the year.
[A] richly detailed, cerebral tale of rationality versus superstitious bigotry.
Fort Wayne (IN) Journal Gazette
A book to delight fans of writers such as John Barth and T.C. Boyle. Or even Jonathan Swift.
This lively and thoughtful adventuer is filled with enough satire and plot to fuel two Mark Twain tomes.
Dazzling . . . [A]n extravagant, expansive, erudite, energetic feast of information and adventure.
"This impeccably researched, highly ambitious novel — nine years in the writing — is a triumph of historical fiction."
It is a book to which Mr. Morrow devoted seven years, according to its jacket copy. And that prodigious dedication pays off. Here are storytelling, showmanship and provocative book-club bait (try finding another recent novel that rivals this one for erudite talking points), all rolled into one inventive feat.
James Morrow's novel about early American witchcraft pulls off so many dazzling feats of literary magic that in a different century he'd have been burned at the stake. Forget The Crucible, Arthur Miller's dreary classic. Forget the repugnant kitsch of modern-day Salem. The Last Witchfinder flies us back to that thrilling period when scientific rationalism was dropped into the great cauldron of intellectual history, boiling with prejudice, tradition, piety and fear. The result is a fantastical story mixed so cunningly with real-life details that your vision of America's past may never awaken from Morrow's spell.
James Morrow is a wildly imaginative and generous novelist who plays hilarious games with grand ideas. He's been compared to Kurt Vonnegut and Mark Twain, and with his latest novel Fielding and Sterne should be added to the list.
Nine years in the making, Morrow's richly detailed, cerebral tale of rationality versus superstitious bigotry is set in late-17th-century London and colonial New England, a time when everyday actions were judged according to the rigid Parliamentary Witchcraft Act and suspect women were persecuted for alleged acts of sorcery. Inquisitive, "kinetic" Jennet Stearne, daughter of militant Witchfinder Gen. Walter Stearne, witnesses this pursuit of "Satanists" up close when her beloved maternal Aunt Isobel Mowbray, a philosopher and scientist, is put on trial and burned at the stake for her progressive ideas. Thirteen-year-old Jennet and her younger brother, Dunstan, immigrate with their now-infamous father to Massachusetts, where Walter (disgraced in England for executing his propertied sister-in-law) puts his "witchfinding" expertise into savage overdrive at the Salem witch trials. Abducted in a raid, Jennet spends seven years captive to the Algonquin Nimacook, until she's freed by and married to Boston postmaster Tobias Crompton. Years later, after a divorce (!), she becomes smitten (and enlightened) by a young Benjamin Franklin. For a metafictional touch to this intrepid, impeccably researched epic (after Blameless in Abaddon), Newton's Principia Mathematica speaks intermittently, its jaunty historical and critical commentary knitted cleverly into the narrative. This tour-de-force of early America bears a buoyant humor to lighten its macabre load. (Mar.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
The protagonist of Morrow's (The Eternal Footman) latest novel is a self-confident young woman named Jennet Stearne, whose father is a witchfinder in late 17th-century England; upon his death, her brother picks up their father's mantle to scourge Satan in Salem, MA. When Jennet's bluestocking aunt, Isobel, is burned at the stake for witchcraft, Jennet determines that her one goal in life will be to bring down the Parliamentary Witchcraft Act of 1604. She moves to the Colonies, where, after many adventures, she takes a young Ben Franklin as lover. She fakes being a witch to gain a forum for her Newtonian views on the absurdity of witchcraft; her brother prosecutes her, and the Baron de Montesquieu, one of the greatest political philosophers of the era, defends her at her trial. Picaresque heroes typically rattle through history, reacting to rather than shaping the near-fantastic mishaps that befall them, but not Jennet! Jennet is a magnet for continual controversy but is determined to win through and does. She is an attractive heroine in an exceptionally engaging and piquantly thoughtful novel. Though similar to John Barth's The Sot-Weed Factor in many respects, Witchfinder is warmer and more human. Strongly recommended.-David Keymer, Modesto, CA Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Adult/High School-England in the late 17th century is an exciting-if dangerous-home for Jennet Stearne, a teen whose family is a microcosm of the country's philosophical and religious conflicts. Though she is enthralled by Isaac Newton's theories and her progressive Aunt Isobel's scientific experiments, she also takes pride in her father, Walter, who is a highly regarded professional witch-hunter. Jennet's filial piety and belief system are overturned abruptly when blameless Isobel is burned at the stake because Walter labels her a witch. The girl vows to prevent other unjust executions by using science to prove witchcraft nonexistent. Her stubborn quest goes on for decades, leading her into wild adventures that include being captured by pirates, becoming an adoptive Native American, witnessing the Salem witch craze, and carrying on an affair with the young Ben Franklin. Jennet and her companions dash through an energetic narrative that re-creates the period believably, thanks to the author's admirable linguistic and historical research. While the protagonist is an appealing character, the real star is Newton's Principia Mathematica, whose amusing commentary provides a new twist to notions about the power and endurance of the printed word. This is a clever literary fantasy costumed as a traditional historical novel and a treat for fiction lovers.-Starr E. Smith, Fairfax County Public Library, VA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Dominating this wide-ranging historical adventure novel is the campaign by one woman to end witch hunts in England and its North American colonies. Clever little Jennet Stearne. While her father Walter, self-appointed Witchfinder-General, is away on the warpath in eastern England in 1688, the 11-year-old is absorbing Newtonian science from her scholarly Aunt Isobel. When Walter, acting on a complaint, targets Isobel herself, gutsy Jennet travels to Cambridge to enlist Isaac Newton's help. Everything goes wrong, first comically, then horribly, for Isobel is burned at the stake, but not before enjoining Jennet to publish a work that will demolish the medieval text (Malleus Maleficarum) that empowered witchfinders and presaged the 1604 Parliamentary Witchcraft Act. Walter has overreached by targeting Isobel, a woman of property, and is exiled to the colonies, along with Jennet and her younger brother Dunstan. Massachusetts is fertile ground for witchfinders; the notorious Salem trials are starting and Dunstan will eventually marry Abigail Williams, that hysterical young accuser. Before Jennet can flee her appalling father and brother, she is abducted by Indians. There follows a pleasantly pastoral time-out before she is rescued by a mailman on horseback. Their consequent marriage fails when their child almost drowns (Jennet was engrossed in Newton). The rollercoaster continues. In Philadelphia, she meets Benjamin Franklin; they become lovers, despite their considerable age difference. They travel to London and meet Newton. Returning home, they are shipwrecked on a Caribbean island. It is here that Nature prompts Jennet's epiphany, her "demon disproof"; her influential treatise is publishedby Franklin. Fortune's wheel turns some more (Jennet engineers her own trial as a witch, big mistake) before witchfinding runs its course and that dreadful statute is repealed. Morrow's latest (he's perhaps best known for The Godhead Trilogy) is commendably ambitious, but this intensely cerebral extravaganza doesn't really work; Jennet is more a talking head than a fully formed character, and Morrow's prose, cobwebbed with archaisms, is no help.
