Review: Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch, by Rivka Galchen

Review: Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch, by Rivka Galchen

by Rich Horton

I have been a fan of Rivka Galchen's writing since I read her story "The Region of Unlikeness" in the New Yorker in 2008 (and I reprinted it in my Best of the Year Anthology.) I very much liked her first novel, Atmospheric Disturbances, from the same year. She continues to write regularly for the New Yorker (and many other magazines.) She was born in Canada, grew up mostly in Oklahoma, and now splits her time between Montreal and New York.

Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch is her second adult novel, from 2021. (She has also published a story collection, and a novel for younger readers, Rat Rule 79.) I bought the book in Traverse City shortly after it was published, but only now have I gotten around to it. And indeed I read much of it via the audiobook, narrated by Natasha Soudek.

This is an historical novel, about a famous person, or perhaps more properly, about the less famous mother of a famous person. And I will confess that I did not for a while realize this, as I was listening to the novel, and the narrator rendered the main character's name as Frau Kepla, to my ears; while her (famous) son was called Hans. (Natasha Soudek throughout renders the names in what seems proper German pronunciation to me.) But eventually I realized that the main character's name is Katharina Kepler, and her son's first name is Johannes, and he is called by everyone "the astrologer", and it all clicked. I don't actually think it's necessary for the enjoyment of the book to know this, though I did take the opportunity to read more about the real history after reading the book, and to be sure Galchen's acknowledgements discuss the novel's origins, and credit many of the books she used for research.

The action of the novel takes place largely between 1615 and 1621, with some flashbacks and with an epilog set some years later. It is set mostly in Leonberg, part of present day Germany, near Stuttgart. It is presented as the account of Katharina Kepler in defense of accusations against her of witchcraft, as told to her neighbor Simon Satler. And we also get interjections from Simon, telling some of the story from his own point of view, as well as a number of reproduced depositions from her accusers (and a couple of defenders.) (I should note that the depositions themselves are fictional, though they do represent versions of actual accusations made against Frau Kepler.) 

Katharina's voice, as imagined by Galchen, is a delight. She is cranky and forthright. She is very confiding to Simon, and very honest about her life. She calls her enemies names like "the Werewolf", "the Cabbage" and "the False Unicorn." She is the very image of a certain kind of grandmother, very fond of her grandchildren but sometimes impatient with her children and their spouses. Besides her grandchildren she loves her cow Chamomile, and not much else. And she is facing a trial for witchcraft. (This period in history -- primarily in Europe but also, as we know, in America -- there was a widespread hysteria about witches, and tens of thousands of people, almost all women, were murdered as a result. And the local magistrate, Lutherus Einhorn (the "False Unicorn" in this novel), prosecuted 15 women and executed 8.) Katharina had attracted the animus of a local woman, Einhorn's cousin, who accused her of causing her illness. 

Over the course of the novel we hear of Frau Kepler's attempts to defend herself, in which she makes a couple of (potentially literally fatal) mistakes -- suing Einhorn for slander, and later trying to bribe him. And we learn about her family -- her feckless and abusive husband, who left her to join the Army and presumably died; her sons Hans and Christoph, her late son Heinrich, and her daughter Greta. We see a lot about life in her village, and her role as an herbalist (which obviously increased her vulnerability to accusation.) And the slow procession of the charges against her continues, with a whole series of mostly obviously absurd stories being told. Her family, and Simon, defend her, and Hans eventually prepares an extensive refutation of all the charges; but the corrupt nature of justice in that milieu stands against her -- particularly the way in which numerous people stand to gain financially by her imprisonment and even by her death.

The tone of the novel is successfully odd. Katharina's voice and attitude lend a sort of darkly comic cast to things, but the weight of the injustice counteracts this. In addition, there is overall a strikingly deadpan depiction of what to modern eyes is a great deal of tragedy -- children dying young, widespread illness, other natural disasters such as a flood, religious conflicts, war (the Thirty Years War began in 1618), political corruption. I won't say how things end -- though a quick Google search will answer any such questions! Ultimately, the novel succeeds on several fronts -- it's a moving tale of one woman's struggle; it's an excellent character portrayal of, in particular, both Katharina and Simon; it's an effective portrayal of everyday life in the 17th Century; and it's a powerful by implication condemnation of the treatment of women in a patriarchal society.