Stacy Schiff’s Witches and Mine
I don’t recall what prompted me to begin reading about
the Salem witchcraft trials, but the deeper I got into the story the more it
assumed the aura of a fever nightmare. Yet in 1692 the bizarre and brutal
events were all too real, as were the people involved, many of whom were
displaying human nature at its darkest. It wasn’t just an incident confined to
a small village; it had spread like a pandemic throughout the New England
colonies. Even the religious, political and legal forces that contended over
the craze, and the manner in which it was eventually snuffed out, made for
compelling reading. I was hooked, and I decided to tell the story my way.
It took me over a year to research and write “What
Happened in Salem.” To that narrative I added “Old Adam” and “The Girls” so
that I could explore aspects that I had not dealt with fully enough. When it
was completed I didn’t try to get it published; I knew of no magazine that
would be interested. It sat in my computer for over ten years. After I started
this blog I decided to include it because I wanted it to exist in some form.
Only “Old Adam” is listed, but at the end of that entry a reader can access the
other two parts.
So Stacy Schiff and I have tackled the same subject. But
there the similarities between us ends. Ms. Schiff is the author of three
biographies and a historical study; all have been awarded prizes (Vera, about Vladimir Nabokov’s
wife, won the Pulitzer). She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and an award
from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Since she’s definitely a
Somebody, I can imagine the following steps: her proposal for a book about the
Salem witchcraft trials was accepted by Little, Brown and Company; she received
an advance and gathered a staff around her; they carried out an enormous amount
of research; she wrote the big book her publishers wanted; it came out in 2015
and was heavily promoted; it rose swiftly to the New York Times Best
Seller list, where it remained for many months.
I got The Witches from the library (there was a
long waiting list) and read the first chapter. I was initially impressed at the
thoroughness and the inventive prose, though at the same time I wondered why I
was having trouble staying focused. I skipped to the end and read the last two
chapters; the wandering mind syndrome was still present. Maybe, I thought, I
knew the story too well for it to hold my attention. I decided that the book
just wasn’t for me.
This essay wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t paid a visit to the
Amazon site and checked out the reviews for The Witches. The negative
responses far outweighed the positive. Although 23% of the reviewers gave the
book five stars, 29% gave it two stars and 26% gave it one. I read what these disgruntled readers had to say; though they
expressed themselves differently, the same categories of faults kept being
cited: the book was “tedious,” “long-winded,” “confusing,” “meandering.”
The blurbs Ms. Schiff chose to use on the back cover of
the book are by historians or biographers; her “meticulous research and lyrical
writing” are lauded. Maybe an academically-minded reader can find another
virtue: readability. For many people interested enough in Salem to buy her
book, Ms. Schiff didn’t deliver on that crucial quality. Since it wasn’t just
me who had remained unengaged, I decided to look more closely at The Witches
and try to identify the source of the negative responses. As someone who had
made conscious decisions on how to approach the story (decisions which differed
radically from Ms. Schiff’s), I thought I could offer a unique perspective.
Thoroughness
Stacy Schiff obviously set out to cover in depth every
nook and cranny of the Salem affair. The Witches weighs in at 415 pages.
Then there are her closing Acknowledgments (in which she names the people who
assisted her), her Notes (in which she cites reference sources) and a Selected
Bibliography. These additions take up another sixty pages, which is a good deal
longer than my entire three part piece. Also, she starts things out with a Cast
of Characters; there are eighty-nine people mentioned. I’m sure that the role
each played is examined. But the impulse to be thorough can result in a
quagmire, and to slog through a quagmire is, as many readers found, “tedious.”
Exhaustive studies are exhausting to read, but that’s what historians and
biographers feel obligated to produce. Ms. Schiff’s book on Vera Nabokov is 456
pages long. Is there really that much of interest to say about the woman?
In my research I faced the enormous complexity of what
went on in Salem. It was both daunting and freeing. As I saw it, my job in “What
Happened in Salem” was to create a narrative that carried the reader along. The
best way to do this was through selective elimination — to bring forth only
those people and events that were representative of the whole. The goal was to
capture the feel of Salem as it grappled with its crisis. Since I’m a writer of
fiction who always tries to be reader-friendly, this was something I was
capable of doing.
Thoroughness serves no good purpose if you lose your
reader’s attention. And I found Ms. Schiff’s thoroughness to be oddly
selective. Available to both of us is the transcript of the confession Ann
Putnam made to the parishioners of Salem in 1706; thirteen years earlier she
had been the chief accuser among the girls. Ms. Schiff offers only a few
snippets from the confession and paraphrases some of the rest. Why, in a very
long book, omit Ann’s 248 words? In “The Girls” I present the entire text
because I found it to be riveting. Salem was a human drama, and I give that
aspect precedence. Ms. Schiff beats me on facts. She was able to discover what
became of the girls: “Mercy Lewis, the Putnam’s maid, bore an illegitimate
child; she later married and moved to Boston.” But the lurking question is what
motivated the girls to act as they did. Though that is ultimately unanswerable,
I offer a line of reasoning that makes psychological sense.
Accuracy
Despite all her research Ms. Schiff frequently
acknowledges a problem she encountered. Near the close of the book she writes “In
three hundred years, we have not adequately penetrated nine months of
Massachusetts history.” True — and we never will. For one thing, those who
wrote the contemporaneous accounts we depend on all had an agenda in
mind (most commonly an ax to grind or a defense of their actions). In the
multitude of books and papers that followed in the next three centuries,
authors present differing versions of events and motivations. One writes that a
certain thing happened this way; another writes that it happened that way. What
version is valid? I decided that no amount of research would clear away the
murkiness (also, I had no staff to aid me and I wasn’t going to devote my life
to Salem). But in my readings major facts did consistently emerge (though they
took slightly different shapes and colors); I went with the account that seemed
the most logical. There are instances where I erred. I write that William Phips
died on the ship carrying him back to America, Ms. Schiff writes that he died
in England. I’m sure that she’s right, but what does it matter?
The biases of those who write about Salem tilt the scales
one way or another. I saw instances where Ms. Schiff’s bias is evident (for
example, she’s particularly hard on Cotton Mather, often employing sarcasm when
describing his machinations). I can’t criticize her for having biases because I
did too. There are many villains in the story of Salem, and few heroes. In all
the craziness and chaos, some used the opportunity to achieve personal goals.
Some were criminally stubborn. Religious dogmatism took a beating. But if you
examine the forces that made Salem Village a tinderbox, the fractious Puritans
don’t seem so alien and deluded. I felt that this point was relevant, so I
included a section called “Old Adam.” When you look behind the curtains of
history you may see yourself staring back.
Prose
On page one Ms. Schiff’s
writes “We have been conjuring with Salem — our national nightmare, the
undercooked, overripe tabloid episode, the dystopian chapter in our past — ever
since. It crackles, flickers and jolts its way through American history and
literature.” Impressive prose, yes. But wordiness, however inventive the words may be, can wear thin. I thought of those Amazon reviewers who found her book to
be “long-winded.” What style serves best in recounting the events that took
place? I think it’s simple, matter-of-fact style. Since only the story matters,
the reader shouldn’t be aware of an author composing beautiful sentences.
Prose also involves arrangement and sequencing and
organization. In a paragraph that opens with the question of what motivated the
accusers, we get a lineup of facts: after a Cotton Mather quote Ms. Schiff
touches on tensions in Andover, the motivations of the confessors, the issue of
reparations claims, and then closes with a John Hale quote. Since the
relationship between all these parts is tenuous, there’s no engaging train of
thought for the reader to follow. Even the descriptions of what went on in the
hearings, which are inherently gripping, suffer from overkill. Ms. Schiff had a
multitude of facts, and too often she doles them out (all of them) in a
disjointed way. This led to the recurring complaint by Amazon critics of the
book being “confusing” and “meandering.”
Thoroughness, Accuracy, Prose — all are intertwined. Ms.
Schiff was encumbered by her attempt at thoroughness and accuracy in a story
too complex and shadowy to bear it; the muddled prose reflects the effort to
include all the muddle of facts that have been diligently garnered.
I’m aware that finding fault with Ms. Schiff smacks of
sour grapes. My Salem story died on the vine, hers thrived. She gave her
publisher the comprehensive study that they wanted; the reviews in the top
newspapers have been overwhelmingly favorable; the book has sold well;
everybody’s happy. Well, everybody except some reviewers at the Amazon site who
gave The Witches one and two stars. Their criticism is as legitimate as
the praise and can’t be discounted.
Putting me in an even worse light (as a shameless
self-promoter) is the fact that I have made the case that my molehill is better
than her mountain. But I believe I do deliver what those disgruntled reviewers
wanted. The fact that I can’t reach that audience bothers me. So count me among
those who aren’t happy.
What Happened in Salem
Old Adam
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