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/

It’s a Mystery: Lie to Me, by J. T. Ellison

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

After the first few chapters of Lie to Me, it impressed me strongly as Gone Girl redux, and it stayed that way for most of the book. Bestselling authors Ethan and Sutton Montclair live the writerly life in Tennessee, and to the outside world, theirs is the perfect marriage. Of course, all is not what it seems, and when Sutton takes off, leaving a note instructing her husband to give her some space, Ethan is unsure what to think or do. The plot thickens relatively quickly, the first half related from his point of view, and the second from Sutton’s. Once the press gets hold of the missing person angle, Ethan comes under suspicion. Someone, it seems, is trying to frame him, but for what? Most of the midsection of this novel drags somewhat, picks up eventually when Sutton relates her side of events, and from thereon, diverges from the Gone Girl trope with a series of surprising developments make it clear that all indeed is not what it seems. Both of the Montclairs have kept  secrets from one another, which combine to create complex and deadly situations for each of them. Even the denouement, however, borrows from other sources.

As characters, Ethan and Sutton are not particularly original or sympathetic, and it’s those in the supporting roles that ultimately add life to the story.

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It’s A Mystery: The Girls in the Garden, by Lisa Jewell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lisa Jewell has written quite a few novels, but this was my introduction to her work, enticed by the idea of a contemporary mystery set in an English communal garden. As the book opens , Clare Wild is moving into a flat with her two daughters, all three reeling from losing their home to a fire set by their schizophrenic husband and father, now hospitalized. They are immediately intrigued by the spacious fenced garden set into the center of their neighborhood, and soon Grace and Pip are drawn into a clique of other girls who live nearby and regularly hang out there.

The first half of the novel focuses upon Grace and Pip’s struggles to adapt, and, while laying the groundwork for the second half, author Jewell displays her talent for creating credible characters, even while nothing momentous is occurring. The same skill is evident when the adults start to take center stage, when one of the girls is discovered, unconscious and bloody, in the otherwise deserted garden. Somebody knows something, and now the mystery is the focus. It seems a similar event occurred fifteen years earlier. Most of the residents now must wrestle with suspicions, secrets, and fears that have long been dormant.

The mystery is ultimately resolved, but a few loose ends remain that refuse to be tucked in. The Girls in the Garden is a satisfying mystery filled with fascinating characters, and much of its appeal lies in watching their actions, reactions, and choices. I’ll definitely be reading more of Lisa Jewell.

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It’s a Mystery: The Woman in Cabin Ten, by Ruth Ware

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Locked room mysteries have been popular over the years, and while The Woman in Cabin Ten takes place on a yacht, it follows classic locked room standards. Lo Blackwood is a journalist working for a travel magazine when she’s handed a plum assignment – to sail and report on the maiden voyage of luxury boutique cruise ship Northern Lights. Shortly before she’s due to depart, Lo’s apartment is broken into while she’s sleeping. Lo is no wonder woman. She’s been depressed and anxious for most of her life, and the break in (which is one of the novel’s more effective sequences) terrifies her, which, in fairness, is how most women would react. To pile on additional stress, she has a fight with her boyfriend hours before boarding ship. So when Lo overhears the sounds of a body being thrown overboard on her first night at sea, she reacts in a way that lands her in permanent panic mode.

The rest of the book follows the course of Lo’s attempts to convince the ship’s crew that a murder has taken place. This is a more difficult task than you might think, and the tension ratchets up even higher when she discovers that someone has been tampering with things in her cabin. Lo trusts none of her fellow passengers, and while no one believes her, she does begin to make some progress to eliminating possible suspects. The final third of the story takes place in a pitch black, locked room deep in the ship’s hold, where Lo has been taken prisoner because she now knows too much. Ruth Ware has realistically portrayed the effects of solitary confinement and sensory deprivation in these scenes. At times, the narrative cuts away to news reports about a woman who has disappeared from Northern Lights and is presumed dead. Will all become clear at the end? Will Lo survive?

Though Lo comes across as an unreliable narrative at times, and an emotional mess nearly all the time, you have to credit her with dogged perseverance, even though she fears, rightly enough, that her life is in danger. She also deserves credit for not allowing her psychological problems to destroy her integrity. Is she “likeable”? Many readers say not. To me, that doesn’t matter, because her story was compelling, and I dare say there are very many people out there who must deal with similar sorts of emotional issues.

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It’s a Mystery: Surrender, New York, by Caleb Carr

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Disgraced criminologist Dr. Trajan Jones, formerly of the NYPD, has set up shop with his business partner/friend, Dr. Mike Li, in the village of Surrender in upstate New York, where the duo teaches online forensic science courses and takes on private cases for investigation. Trajan bases his methods on those of Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, protagonist of author Carr’s fine breakout novels, The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness. Having lost a leg to cancer in his youth, Jones has psychological issues of his own and must deal with constant pain and the possibility of relapse. As a character, he shares much in common with Sherlock Holmes, including the annoying traits of arrogance and irascibility. As the novel’s narrator, Trajan is also prone digressing into lengthy lectures about science, literature, and human foibles. Mike Li, on the other hand, is relatively free of heavy baggage, and is much more genuine colleague than Dr. Watson ever was, though he does offer a sense of humor and steady emotional support and when needed.

The complex plot is replete with other colorful characters, most notably the irrepressible, teenaged “consulting detective Lucas, and Marcianna, the beloved cheetah that Trajan rescued from an abusive petting zoo. Both provide relief from the intensity of Trajan and Mike’s current case, which involves the deaths of a series of “throwaway children”, homeless kids left behind when their parents simply deserted them. It soon becomes clear that the Empire State’s senior politicos understand the depth of this problem but simply don’t care, preferring to cover it up. Trajan and Mike determine to rectify this situation no matter whom they must take down and how much resistance they encounter.

Plot, setting, and characters blend well together, but at times not well enough to overcome the novel’s shortcomings. One is its heavy use of profanity, especially the f word, which peppers every chapter regardless of who is talking. Trajan is also overly fond of the word “indeed” and the use of convoluted sentences when simpler and shorter ones would do just as well. Finally, the book is just too long, and the many suspenseful and/or gruesome scenes are interspersed with passages overloaded with detail.

Nonfiction Worth Reading: Living in Italy – The Real Deal, by Stef Smulders

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Italy, one of the world’s most beautiful places, is admired for many things – La Dolce Vita, pasta, wonderful wines, passionate people, and wonderful art. There is one particular institution, however, that is deeply puzzling to most non-Italians – its governmental bureaucracy. In Living in Italy, Stef Smulders relates the story of how he and his husband, Nico, relocated from the Netherlands to Lombardy to start a B&B. The grandfather of books like this is, of course, Peter Mayle’s bestseller A Year in Provence, published in the 70’s, and in 1996, Frances Mayes had similar success with Under the Tuscan Sun. Ex-pat narratives by now form a large genre of their own, and Living in Italy by Stef Smulders is a worthy addition to the category.

In 1998, Stef and his husband Nico moved to Lombardy from their native Netherlands to start a B&B. Being members of a very organized society, they arrived at their new home in Montecalvo with the assumption that the renovation of their new house would proceed efficiently. By the end of their first week, their belief in Murphy’s Law was firmly cemented. Living in Italy is a delightful series of vignettes, written with wry humor and an unpretentious air of befuddlement. How could all these snafus keep happening? It probably takes an Italian to understand. But for a year, Stef and Nico survived within the confines of their kitchen, surrounded by the noise, dirt, and chaos racket being carried out by a crews of artisans whose work ethic is decidedly, shall we say, casual. Forays into the intricacies of obtaining official documents and licenses (coda fiscale) are equally nerve wracking. Read these chapters and you feel as though you’ve personally known estate agent Olito, architectural engineer Cassini, and builder Torti. But Stef also writes engagingly about the local culture, on such topics as wine tasting, using public toilets, cooking lessons, and exploring the hardware store.

All’s well that ends well, and after a harrowing swimming pool installation, Nico and Stef are finally ready open the doors to Villa I Due Patroni. One of the pleasures of reading about their experiences, one that was not available for Provence or Tuscany, is visiting the property’s website to see the results of all their struggles. If I ever travel to Lombardy, that’s where I want to stay.

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It’s a Mystery: The Bookseller, by Cynthia Swanson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Kitty Miller is a trailblazer. Nearing middle age during the 1960’s, she’s unapologetically single, the co-owner of her own Denver book store, and enjoying her simple, independent lifestyle. True, her social life has dwindled and her business is struggling because the new mega shopping centers have drained business traffic from downtown. But Kitty and co-owner Frieda are life-long best friends, and life is good. Then, Kitty finds herself spending her sleep time in another world, where, as
Katharine, she’s married to the hunky Lars and raising their family of triplets. Soon she can’t quite distinguish which of her lives is “real”, and sets out to investigate how her memories and experiences in both might just intersect.

The plot of The Bookseller proceeds with alternating chapters, first in one world, then the other. The general social tone of the early 1960’s is captured in both settings, before Beatlemania changed so many things. Kitty wears slacks, for example, though many women frown upon that. Her parents are conventional, supportive, and homebodies. There isn’t much detail about the bookstore, however, and not much talk about books, so the title doesn’t seem quite apropos. The pace is slow until the final third of the book, when Kitty/Katharine begins trying to pin down the facts. One of Katherine’s sons is presented as autistic, this in the days before special education, and while some of his problems are handled realistically, others are glossed over. This is a book loaded with little mysteries, and the denouement occurs abruptly, with an outcome opposite to the one I expected. The cause of the entire episode is left for the reader to infer.

A promising debut novel.

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It’s a Mystery: The Long Way Home, by Louise Penny

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Long Way Home is Louise Penny’s tenth Chief Inspector Gamache novel. The pace has changed in more than one way, for Armand has retired from heading the homicide unit of Quebec’s Surete, moving with wife Reine-Marie (I always smile at her name; in some sections of the US, she’d probably be called “Queenie”.) from Montreal to Three Pines, the picture-book village in which much of this series is set. Armand is struggling to recover from PTSD, and wants nothing more than peace, good food, and the company of family and friends. But if that were to happen, there would be no tenth novel….

One of the prequels to The Long Way Home, A Trick of the Light, ended with the separation of village artists Clara and Peter Morrow, because of Peter’s intense jealousy of Clara’s professional success. The couple agree to live apart for a year, then reunite to decide whether they have a future together. On the appointed day, however, Peter fails to show up, and after weeks of worry, Clara asks for Gamache’s advice. The good-hearted Armand cannot refuse, and offers to help Clara track her husband’s whereabouts. Peter’s trail, faint at first, turns out to encompass four European and two Canadian cities, before it abruptly ends. The worst is feared. Through a combination of well honed investigative skills and keen intuition, Gamache’s and Jean-Guy Beauvoir (now son-in-law and former second in command), manage to piece together seemingly unrelated details and bring the search to a suspenseful conclusion. No spoilers here.

In what has now become a trend in this series, author Penny takes her readers to some of Quebec’s provincial wonders, in this case the immense Manicouagan Crater, caused eons ago by the impact of an asteroid. The famous art colonies at Baie St. Paul and the mighty St. Laurence River are also given parts to play. As always, her elegant prose, psychological insight, and memorable characters, who by now seem real to me, add a strong literary component which raises her books above mere genre. Who wouldn’t love to know Gamache? And the characters that are specific to each mystery are just as complex and intriguing as the regulars. I’m hoping that in the next entry, we learn whether thirteen year old Bean is a boy or a girl.

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It’s a Mystery: The Nature of the Beast, by Louise Penny

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, reeling from the traumatic outcomes of his last few cases, has retired and moved to the insulated country village of Three Pines with his wife, Reine Marie. (It makes one wonder why he’d choose a spot where murder happens on a ongoing basis, but there you have it.) Their peace and joy are suddenly marred, however, when a young boy is found murdered in the woods. Gamache takes on a mystery of global proportions as the facts of the death come to light, in his unaccustomed role of consultant to his successor, Chief Inspector Isabelle LaCoste. What they find is a huge rocket launcher, buried in the underbrush, and etched with a horrific image of the Biblical Whore of Babylon. And it’s aimed at the United States.

How do an imaginative child, two secret service clerks, a retired physics professor, a Vietnam era draft dodger, and a serial killer figure into this story? As is usual in a Louise Penny novel, time will reveal all, with a lot of input from Gamache and company. There are some chilling scenes in this novel, as when he interviews the fiendish serial killer, as well as some additional murders. And as usual, the ending is satisfying, leaving no pesky loose ends, but it also leaves some disturbing moral ambiguities. Thought provoking as always and well worth reading, based upon a true situation.

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It’s a Mystery: Before I Go to Sleep, by S. J. Watson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Before she goes to sleep each night, Christine Wheeler has an inkling about who and where she is. When she awakens next morning, she’ll have no clue. The man who introduces himself as her husband Ben each day tells her that she developed amnesia following a car accident, nearly twenty years ago. He’s pinned some photos to the bathroom mirror as reminders, but Chris is completely dependent upon him, though she’s now well enough to stay home alone while he goes off to his teaching job. But this lack of a sense of self is intolerable to her, and when a psychologist, Dr. Nash, phones to ask her to participate in a memory study, she agrees on condition that he doesn’t inform her husband. By journaling the bits of her past that she agonizingly recovers, Chris begins to form a coherent picture of who she used to be. Soon she realized that, for some reason, she does not totally trust Ben.

Before I Go to Sleep is a harrowing first person account detailing what life is like for a person with no memories. Author S. J. Watson researched the topic by studying the lives of two amnesia victims, and as he follows Christine through her days, the reader experiences pretty much what she does. With the support of only Ben and Dr. Nash, she cannot even trust her own impressions, knowing that paranoia is a side effect of her condition. This brilliantly executed novel is crafted so well that it’s difficult to believe it’s Mr. Watson’s debut novel. Writing with empathy and a surprisingly accurate understanding of the female mind, he takes  what might be a mundane, repetitive narrative and develops it into a first rate thriller. Although the ultimate truth about Christine’s relationship is telegraphed in the text, the other details concerning the story’s resolution are stunning enough to ameliorate that flaw. This is an accomplished and haunting novel, well deserving of the awards it has earned.

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