Book Review: "The Heretic’s Daughter" by Kathleen Kent

By Carlotta G. Holton

In 1692, nineteen men and women were murdered as witches in Salem, Massachusetts. The underlying root of this atrocity lay within the mob psychology of the village. Living in an isolated community, led by rigid patriarchal figures, family turned on family to save their own skins.

The familiar tragedy is told this time through the eyes of ten-year-old Sarah Carrier. Partly because I have researched and read some of the transcripts and written on this subject and because Kent is an ancestor of Martha Carrier, one of those hanged, I hoped to really connect to this first novel. It gets off to a promising start as the child is sent to her aunt and uncle’s when one of her brother’s contracts smallpox. The author advances an interesting connection between smallpox and witchcraft. Reverend Nason speculates that “disease follows a decline in virtue and brings a rise in witchcraft.”

To save the Carrier children they are move in with the aunt and uncle where Sarah is treated well and befriended by her cousin, Margaret. She is quick to make comparisons to her own family and soon finds herself wishing to stay.

At the heart of The Heretic’s Daughter is the mother-daughter relationship. We learn that her mother, Martha, had a “cast iron manner” and her “face was as smooth and cold as a gravestone.” Martha, like many of the flat characters in the book is an unsympathetic victim. I expected more emotions through the eyes of a child whose hellish experiences surely should have elicited more emotional reaction. With time, Sarah learns of her mother’s form of love and the true nature of those she had loved. Using a poisoned mushroom as an example, her mother alerts her to the realities of life. “The signs are varied and subtle. You must look carefully, not just at the top of the thing but at its underside, where the poison often gathers… People too are not often what they seem, even those whom you love.”

Though the language is lyrical, at times it seems almost affected and unnecessarily forced and flowery. Nor does the language do anything to advance the expected tension, fear and frenzy of the psychology that motivated the witch naming. We are told about spectral evidence but never get to witness the imagery of covens in the woods. We hear about wild dreams and spells but have no descriptions. We are told about the horrors but not sufficiently shown them. When Allen comes to claim the family’s property the scene lacks sufficient tension.

Perhaps one of the most disappointing relationships is that between Martha and husband, Thomas. Though he is dutiful in bringing her meager bits of food to her jail cell, he shows no outward emotion regarding her dire situation. He does not try to talk her out of her stubborn refusal to admit being a witch in order to save her children.

Kent propels us through the book relying on the commonly held belief that the psychological concept of scapegoat was an inherent part in the naming of the witches. Fear breeds fear which has been repeatedly explored in other works about the witchcraft epidemic. The author baits readers with the right questions: Who can trust whom? Does a cold mother who guards a family secret deserve to die? Can a daughter who has for the most part distrusted and been angry with her mother let her do so? Yet this reader did not care about the characters to struggle with these moral dilemmas.

The hangings at Salem are a blemish on early America. The Heretic’s Daughter is a mediocre rehashing of this tragic psychological phenomenon. It was a disappointing read; a tepid brew not worth the trouble.