May Day and Abolition
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Daily Kickoff: Negotiators suggest Iran deal not imminent + Arnold Roth joins JI s podcast
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“It was always possible that the Devil was present.”
So begins Chris Bohjalian’s “Hour of the Witch” an historical novel, set in Boston in 1662, that is part thriller and part courtroom drama, leavened with romantic intrigue.
For Boston Puritans, the threat of witchcraft is part of everyday life. This prospect will directly complicate the attempt of one young woman, Mary Deerfield, to escape her horrifically abusive marriage.
Chris Bohjalian (Courtesy Victoria Blewer)
Now 24 years old, Mary has been married to Thomas Deerfield for five years. Two decades her senior, Thomas owns a successful mill in Boston’s North End. He is also a mean drunk who verbally and physically abuses Mary, but who has enough feral cunning to treat her politely when others are around. Mary has also become adept at living a double life: to friends and family, she explains away bruises she can’t hide with tales of clumsiness.
Gorton Cemetery in Waterford. (photo submitted)
Published February 18. 2021 12:01AM
Eileen Olynciw, Special to The Times
Alert drivers may wonder about the small burial ground squeezed onto a narrow, grassy divider between the fast-moving traffic of I-95 North and Parkway South across from Lowes.
At one time, the Gorton Family Burial Ground lay on an unpaved country lane that wound its way up and down the hills from New London to Lyme.
Passersby hurrying along in the early 19th century unpaved roadway may have noticed fresh graves in the small enclosure in the corner of a grassy field as each grave was added to those of the Gorton family.