Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch

 Written by Rivka Galchen, an award winning Canadian American author, Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch is an amazing retelling of an historic story of an old "cantankerous, nosy" woman accused of being a witch.

The year is 1610 and the place is a small village in Germany.  The accused witch is Katarina, who in real life was the mother of Johannes Kepler, who was along with Galileo and Newton was a philosopher and scientist.  Interesting though not really relevant to the book, Kepler was laws of planetary motion would pave the way to Newton's revolutionary celestial physics.  Kepler thought the planets move in elliptical orbits not circular ones.  This in itself could get a person hanged at the stake at that time...

But back to the novel..it gets very mixed reviews some people loved it and some found it difficult to follow and confusing.  It is written in an unusual style, in one place described as choral narrative, where there are multiple voices speaking in concert without identifying who is speaking at anyone time.  

So with a plethora of characters all staking turns speaking you must follow the plot carefully.  If you do you will find a jewel of a story comes through.  This book is presented as a trial of a witch but it is really about love, family and allegiance.  It is about mass hysteria and how it can pull people along with the growing tide.  About fear and misunderstanding.

One woman accuses Katarina of making her ill and calls her out as a witch.  The Governor announces that a trial date will be set and starts to gather confessions.  The townspeople come forward and state their grievances with Katarina building a case that she is a witch.  Her family stands by her along with her friend Simon.  We also learn what happens to them.  How their lives are affected by the turn of events.

This is a story of an ancient time but it is still in many ways relevant today.  So many parallels can be drawn between the negative call of witchcraft and the modern calling out of racism and anti-semitism.  All ways of making someone the other, blaming someone else for your problems and short comings. 

Hopefully today we can recognize the untruthfulness of those who try to malign others and stand up for  the rights of those who are accused unjustly.  This book will remind us of how important that can be.