The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane – Serendipity

I recently read an interview with Margaret Atwood where she was talking about how she felt that the internet promoted literacy. In the interview she said she didn't think bookstores would disappear due to the internet and ebooks because bookstores offer an opportunity for serendipity that the internet does not. To a certain extent I agree - when you walk in a bookstore you see the big pyramidal stacks of best sellers, but when you wander in further, meandering along shelves, a book will often grab you, metaphorically speaking, and not let go. But I also believe there is opportunity for serendipity everywhere, you just have to be open to it.

I found my most recent listening pleasure, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe, purely by happy accident. I was cruising Library to Go for something to listen to as I was between books. I had recently listened to one of L.A. Meyer's Bloody Jack books (more about that in a future post) and I really like the reader, Katherine Kellgren. I had listened to her read a number of other books and have always been impressed. So I did a search for books she had read, and one that didn't have any holds on it looked interesting. So, through online serendipity, I gave it a try and after a bit of a slow beginning, I was hooked. I always know it's a good one when I plug my speakers and MP3 player in at work and grab a couple of minutes of listening when there is nobody in the library with me.

I'm not sure if this book, which tells two parallel stories that swirl around the 1692 Salem Witch trials, would be considered high literature, but it seemed to be just what I was needing in that moment. It was a book about self-discovery, magic (usually one of my main criteria, but not always), history, books, and a little light romance thrown in to sweeten the pot. I always find myself in a quiet, reflective mood in the time between Christmas and New Years. It seems to be a time of possibility and great dreams – the perfect time to listen to a book by a great reader, that features a woman discovering herself and her ancestors at the same time. Hmmmm... serendipity? I managed to find the perfect book, for the perfect time, when I wasn't looking for it.

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, features Connie, a young Harvard graduate student who is searching for a new source of material as she works on her thesis in American Colonial history. At the same time, her mother, Grace - a new-age ex hippie in New Mexico, makes her daughter visit her grandmother's old home near Salem to prepare it for sale. The house is overgrown with vines and has no phone or electricity. It hasn't been visited for over 20 years. Connie finds a key in a bible, and in a chamber in the key, finds a parchment with "Deliverance Dane" written on it, which launches the woman's quest for her own connection to the Salem Witch Trials and the gifts passed down through the women in her family.

In her prologue, author Katherine Howe, who was doing her own thesis when the idea for the story came to her, explains how she looked at the people of the Puritan age when the trials occurred and their firm belief in witchcraft. Instead of dismissing the belief of this large group of people like most historians and authors did, she approached the story from a different point of view. "What if they were right?"

Loved the story, loved the reading, and had that warm, tingly, happy feeling (tinged with that sense of loss that always happens when I finish a good book) when it was over.

I downloaded The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane from Library to Go, and Hyperion doesn't seem to have much of an online presence for their audiobooks so you can listen to a sample here at Library to Go.

Listen Up!

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, (12 hrs, 45 mins), Hyperion Audio, (2009)