rocky41_7 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rocky41_7) wrote2025-07-15 05:29 pm
rocky41_7) wrote2025-07-15 05:29 pm
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Recent Reading: The Once and Future Witches
On Monday I finished The Once and Future Witches by Alix Harrow, about a trio of sisters in the American city of "New Salem" in Massachusetts in 1893 who take it upon themselves to revive witches' magic.
The Once and Future Witches dovetails historically with the movement for women's suffrage, creating some parallels between seeking the right to the vote and seeking the right to practice magic. I would have liked to have seen this carried more through the latter half of the novel, but I suppose I can see why it wasn't, particularly given it would be another nearly thirty years before the passage of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote. The suffragettes played a long game.
The core focus of the novel is sisterhood, both blood and otherwise. Harrow presents a beautifully wounded and layered portrait of siblinghood in the relationship between the three protagonists: Bella, the oldest; Agnes, the middle child; and Juniper, the youngest. Raised without a mother (she passed birthing Juniper) under the thumb of their abusive and alcoholic father in rural poverty, all three girls learned early on what they would do to ensure their own survival. And while there is great love between them, there is also great hurt, and by the start of the book, the three are not on speaking terms. Harrow did a great job with the complexity here, and watching their relationships develop and begin to heal was very enjoyable.
The other sisterhood focus here is that of chosen sisterhood—primarily in the movement to revive witching in New Salem. These women must learn to trust and support each other on a dangerous mission and that's not always easy—but it is rewarding.
The book doesn't eschew questions of intersectionality either. The women's suffrage movement is justly criticized for its broad refusal to include Black women. Elsewhere, Cleopatra Quinn, an intrepid writer for New Salem's most prominent Black newspaper, remarks somewhat bitterly when public opinion starts to turn sharply against the witches that "it will fall hardest on my people. It always does." Cleo plays a large and crucial role in the quest to revive witching. And she's ever so dashing.
It thankfully doesn't lean as much on "feminine mysticism" as it might have—men can do magic too, and while there's debate among characters in the book about "women's magic" vs. "men's magic" the book's ultimate answer seems to be that those distinctions don't matter. Magic is magic. Anyone can do it if they have the knowledge and the will. However, then, I think it does not sufficiently answer why men in this world by and large have failed to take advantage of magic—surely this could have been wielded to reinforce the patriarchy as well? Instead, magic is simply scorned and banned entirely. This does come a little close to "men think, women feel" for me. (There is a trans witch, but this is a very minor plot point that arises quite late in the book, so don't read it for that alone.)
Each of the sisters has her own personal arc, as well as her role in the overarching quest. Each of them also has some attribute that makes them unpalatable to popular society. June is simply wild, refusing to be bound by any social convention, and inclined to violence. Her arc centers around learning to move beyond lashing out like a mistreated child and grow past her unhappy childhood. Agnes is unmarried and pregnant at the start of the novel, and has decided the only way to protect herself is to keep everyone else out of her life. Her arc centers on learning to let others in, to support and be supported by her friends and family. Bella is queer and bookish, and trapped in feelings of inadequacy. Her arc centers on learning to trust and accept herself. All three felt very realistic and I never felt like Harrow was rushing them through their development; it takes place slowly, with some regression, but by the end you can see they've grown into the people they were meant to be, and it's a wonderful thing.
The book can be repetitive at times, both in theme and in word (Harrow loves the formula of describing something as "a [adjective] thing"). This makes the reader feel the length of the book more than they might otherwise, but the story still remains engaging.
It can also come off a little pretentious and self-important. It takes itself very seriously, and while for much of the book I'm able to take that at face value, there are moments when it felt a little heavy-handed.
The final action scene is somewhat awkwardly written, where it feels like some characters are standing by mute and still for minutes at a time while others run through a litany of thoughts and actions. Perhaps this is the difficulty of trying to balance three perspectives on a single scene, but I did find myself wondering "Where's so-and-so during all this? Aren't they standing right there?" at moments.
On the whole, I liked this book. It has a lot going for it—the writing is frequently lovely in its descriptions, I really enjoyed the protagonists, what romance there was was rewarding, and the sisterhood theme hit hard. It's not my favorite low fantasy book about witches, but it was a fun read.
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books , booknook and fffriday
Crossposted to
books , booknook and fffriday 
