Buttolph Williams House and The Witch of Blackbird Pond

One look at the Buttolph-Williams house is enough to transport the imaginative viewer straight back to America’s earliest century. Built in 1711, this first period building is typically medieval-English in style, with its massive posts and beams, its overhangs and finials, and its small leaded paned windows. It represents the most authentic restoration of a 17th century style dwelling in the CT River Valley, and contains a lovely collection of early furniture, kitchenware, and ceramics.

Few people are aware, however, that the Buttolph-Williams House was a source of inspiration, and the partial setting, for the Newbery Medal-winning book The Witch of Blackbird Pond, by Elizabeth George Speare. This fictional classic is based upon the story of Kit Tyler, an orphaned adolescent girl forced by necessity to live with her uncle’s family in Connecticut, who becomes involved in a case of suspected witchcraft when she befriends Hannah Tupper, a local woman who does not conform to Puritan standards of the day. Author Speare witnessed the restoration of the Buttolph Williams house in the 1950’s, and learned at the same time about the witchcraft trials and executions that took place in Wethersfield in the 1660’s, a full three decades before Salem.

Today the house is operated as a museum, and the rooms have been arranged to reflect various scenes in The Witch of Blackbird Pond. To see enlargements of photos, click on each image.

Kitchen hearth with settle and flax wheel. In this location, Mercy did her spinning, Kit spoiled the hasty pudding, and the Dame School was taught. Mercy, who had difficulty walking, slept by the fireside.

The hall, or best room, where the John and William called upon Kit and Judith. The young people knitted, ate popcorn, and

did some reading while “courting.”

The second floor chamber shared by Kit and Judith.

The Buttolph Williams House is owned by Connecticut Landmarks. To learn more or plan a visit: http://www.ctlandmarks.org/index.php

Links to info about real Connecticut witchcraft trials:

https://yourehistory.wordpress.com/2007/05/15/before-salem-first-to-die/

https://yourehistory.wordpress.com/2007/07/09/before-salem-first-to-confess/

Historical Fiction: The Boston Girl, by Anita Diamant

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ of 5

Addie Baum is the latest in a long list of strong heroines created by author Anita Diamant. We are introduced to her as she turns 85, about to begin an oral diary of her life at the request of her granddaughter. Born in Boston to a family of Jewish immigrants, Addie has anything but an idyllic childhood; her family is poor, but worse, her father ignores her and her mother is relentlessly, often cruelly,  critical of her. Addie is a dutiful daughter, and with the protection of a sympathetic older sister, and later, a few good friends, she learns to develop a sort of gutsy, hopeful courage that will serve her well as she navigates the tumultuous changes that occur throughout the 20th century. 

The Boston Girl is richly textured, glowing with warmth, humor, optimism, love, and heartbreak. Diamant knows Boston well, creating a setting that feels lively and genuine. She writes in the plain, straightforward language one would expect from someone like Addie and the many people from all walks of life that she meets. Emotionally resonant and ultimately satisfying, this novel places Addie Baum firmly within Anita Diamant’s company of strong, resilient women, Highly recommended.

Domestic Suspense: Someone Knows, by Lisa Scottolini

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Taking a break from her taut crime series, Lisa Scottoline spins a melodramatic tale about six members of a high school clique, whose lives will be forever changed by their reckless behavior on one summer night. Their story is related by Allie Garvey, a shy, socially awkward girl reeling from the recent death of her beloved older sister. The opening sections of the book set the stage for the cataclysm that overtakes the group, which produces the ghastly secret that they swear to keep forever.

The long aftermath of the disaster continues to be narrated by the now thirty-something Allie, married and working as a child advocate. She has never been able to forgive herself for the disaster, which she cannot relate even to her husband or therapist. When the clique gathers once again at the funeral of one of the members, it becomes evident that they too have had to deal with significant emotional fallout. They begin to regard each other with deep suspicion, and other secrets come to light. Pressures build, and one of the members is determined to see to it that they all respect their oath of silence.

Scottolini’s writing is competent, as ever, but many of the scenes are histrionic. You’d expect that from the high schoolers, but meeting them twenty years later, it seems they haven’t matured much. Apparently the trauma experienced at age 15 stunted their psychological development. One of them comes across as a psychopath, others as completely self centered, but their representation as mid-teenagers was authentic. There was enough action in this book to keep me reading till the end, however, and it was worth it for the last minute surprise that I never saw coming.



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It’s a Mystery: Memory Man, by David Baldacci

Memory Man by David Baldacci

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Giving this book 4 stars, even though I was not able to finish it. The concept of a man who cannot forget absolutely anything is very intriguing, but this poor main character was afflicted with this condition after discovering the bodies of his murdered family. The writing was competent, but this character’s life was so terribly miserable and depressing that I found myself unable to read to the end. Empaths beware. Otherwise, if you don’t mind this sort of thing, this could be a great story.



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Modern Lit: In Five Years, by Rebecca Serle

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In Five Years, a novel by Rebecca Serle, is more than a story. Reading it is an experience, with genuine emotional highs and lows. Protagonist Danielle Kohan is a 30-something woman who is the very definition of the type A personality. A corporate attorney living in NYC, Dannie is about to land her dream job and become engaged to long term boyfriend David, and life is going exactly according to plan, thank you very much. In five years, they will be married, living in Gramercy Park, and living large. Returning home from their celebratory dinner and awash in champagne, Dannie falls asleep. In her dreams, she finds herself exactly five years in the future, in a loft apartment not her own, wearing a different engagement ring, in the company of Aaron, a movie star handsome man she’s never met before. The calendar on the wall tells her it’s exactly five years in the future. When she awakens back in her own time and place, Dannie is shaken to her core, unsure about whether she’s had a dream or a vision. What if what she experienced is real?

Up until this point, early in the plot, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to continue reading what seemed to be a rom-com, but now I was hooked. Dannie attempts to follow her carefully constructed life plan, but she isn’t very good and dealing with uncertainty, and soon there will be other changes that will submerge her into depths of hope and fear, anguish and despair, confusion and anger and depression. Serle is a very good writer, but the center of the novel contained too many emotional elements that I simply prefer not to deal with anymore when reading fiction. But that’s my preference; many other readers, judging from their reviews, don’t feel that way. At the final third of the novel, Dannie’s dream comes back into play in a very interesting way, so the plot was redeemed, and I was glad to discover how Dannie would fare, even though I came to not like her very much. I didn’t enjoy the subject matter, but I can appreciate the skill with which this author can put together a story.




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Seaside State Park, Waterford, CT

Although I’m a lifelong resident of Connecticut, I’d never heard of Seaside Sanitarium until October, 2020, when my husband and I took an open air boat ride out of New

London. In keeping with the pandemic, Seaside Shadows, a ghost tour company based in Mystic, offered a “Historic Epidemics”  tour along the mouth of the Thames River and nearby shoreline. Back in the 1970’s, we had visited Harkness Memorial State Park, a verdant and scenic estate overlooking Long Island sound. At the time, we had no clue about the existence of a sprawling waterfront estate right down the road from Harkness. After our curiosity about it was stimulated on last year’s boat tour, the site went onto the top of our places to visit. Yesterday, a beautiful, mild  spring afternoon when we’d had it with being stuck at home, presented the perfect opportunity to investigate the grounds of the eerie, gothic pile we’d glimpsed from afar on the water.

The Seaside Sanitarium was built by the Connecticut State Tuberculosis Commission Clinic. Designed by architect Cass Gilbert, it opened in 1934 as the only medical facility in America incorporating a heliotropic approach (lots of sunshine and fresh air) to treating children with tuberculosis. It functioned as a TB hospital until 1958, after effective drugs therapies had rendered sanitariums unnecessary. For the next three years, it was used as a geriatric center, then became The Seaside Center for the Mentally Retarded. It closed in 1996 and has been vacant ever since.

Though an attempt to find other uses for this truly magnificent property, no viable solutions were found, and in 2014, it became Seaside State Park. Since then, the  state has been working on a plan to save the buildings, which are deteriorating, and establish a resort and conference center, but as of July 2019, no progress has been made. For now, the 36 oceanfront acres are open to the public, but the buildings are boarded up, with the main hospital surrounded by a chain link fence. It’s a picturesque place to wander around, albeit a bit eerie, and you can even pick up a few tiny shells on the sandy little beach. Should you decide to visit, there is a small parking lot just before the driveway, which is off limits to vehicles. There is no admission fee.

It’s a Mystery: The Third Girl, by Nell Goddin

My rating: ⭐️⭐️ of five.

Forty-something, recently divorced Molly Sutton moves to a classic French village to begin a new life as the proprietor of a classic French gite (B&B). She falls in love with the ambiance and the villagers and already has some bookings. When a gifted English art student disappears, Those in town are especially worried, because two other young women disappeared a year or so earlier. Is there a serial killer living among them?

The gendarmerie begin investigating, but there is frustratingly little to go on. The narrative switches between the work of the three officers and Molly’s observations of the reactions of her new neighbors. There are a few moments of mild suspense, but basically The Third Girl fits snugly into the cozy genre. While there is plenty of conversation there isn’t much action. Surprisingly when the setting is in the south of France, the author frequently mentions the beauty and charm of the village without actually describing it. With the exception of Molly herself, the characters are rather bland, and Molly is prone to making iffy decisions based upon emotion. As for the mystery, there are no clues that could lead the reader to discover whodunnit.

Yawn.

Historical Fiction: Beheld, by TaraShea Nesbit

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ of 5

Was there a murder on the Mayflower? Maybe. But without doubt, a murder did occur in Plymouth Colony, ten years after its founding. That crime is the vehicle upon which TaraShea Nesbit builds a story that blows America’s long standing myths about the “godly” Pilgrims clear out of the water.

Nesbit’s two protagonists are women, Alice, the wife of Governor William Bradford, and Eleanor, married to indentured servant John Billington. On a daily basis, all must grapple with a myriad of unfamiliar dangers as they try to establish successful lives in a strange new environment. In spite of the pious religious ideals espoused at the meeting house, the identical socio/economic tensions that existed in Europe continue to cause tremendous strain in the new world. Bradford is responsible for allocating land allotments to all colonists, and does so with an uneven hand. With every new wave of incomers, tensions multiply, and when the elites conspicuously fail to assuage them, the first murder of a colonist by a colonists occurs.

The story plays out in alternating chapters, essentially mini-autobiographies, narrated by the educated, refined Alice Bradford and the working class Eleanor Billington. In spite of their status difference, as women, each of them is virtually powerless in this society, as their experiences make clear. Through their words, we watch conflicts take root that grow so innate that they continue to dominate America today.

Nesbit’s research for her novel appears sound and deep, and her prose is evocative. Read this short but compelling book, and watch the the cloying myth of the noble and selfless puritans finally shatter.

It’s a Mystery: Confessions on the 7:45, by Lisa Unger

Confessions on the 7:45 by Lisa Unger
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

 

There has been a rash of crime novels lately that involve train rides, and Confessions on the 7:45 is one of the better ones. This is a complex, two sided tale that takes place over a period of ten years. Selena is a happily married career woman who, little by little, discovers that her husband is quite different from the man she thought he was. Hers is the story with which the book opens. Pearl is an orphaned teenager adopted after her mother’s murder by one of her mother’s kind employees. After the introduction of Pearl, the twin threads alternate in a long series of episodes that build high drama and suspense. Their stories, merging only gradually, provide the author with the opportunity to explore the myriad delusions that people adopt as reality when the truth is too painful to face. How well do we ever know the people we love and trust? How do we know when we’re being manipulated? Why and how do we ignore our own instincts? What does it take to force us to recognize and let go of our illusions? How do we recover?

This thriller is the product of a skilled writer. The plot is multi-layered, the characters well drawn and relatable. How would we react, or perhaps more importantly, act, when placed in the situations facing Selena and Pearl? There is little behavior here that does not commonly play out, to some extent, in our own lives.

Historical Fiction: My Dear Hamilton, by Stephanie Dray and Laurie Kamoie

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Having recently watched the video “Hamilton” on TV, I found various scenes rather confusing. The last time I read anything about Alexander H. I was in 8th grade. As a result, I decided read up on him before attempting to watch the musical again, and downloaded the audio version of Stephanie Dray’s My Dear Hamilton. Based upon Eliza Hamilton’s own letters, this book is a fictionalized narrative, related by Eliza, of her experiences as Mrs. Hamilton.

Part romance, part autobiography, and part eyewitness to history, the amount of detail in in My Dear Hamilton is nothing short of astounding. And therein lies the problem. While many sections were fascinating, others were melodramatic and repetitive. The book in print runs to nearly 700 pages, the audio version to 24 hours. I gave up listening at 18 hours, after Hamilton’s death, no longer able to persevere. Though I remain curious to learn about Eliza’s life as a widow, I’ll look it up online. Then I’ll give the musical another go, with song lyrics in hand.

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