Reprising a chapter in American history that remains perplexing more than 300 years later, Stacy Schiff (CLEOPATRA: A Life) has resurrected the ghosts and shadows of 17th-century Salem, Massachusetts.

Though the Puritans of Salem were “avid record keepers,” they kept no written archives about the village and surrounding area during the period when a group of adolescent girls started a hysterical cry of witchcraft that resulted in the executions of some 20 citizens. Yet, as Schiff sagely notes, during that same period, “Vision grew sharper in Salem. Memories improved,” as folks eagerly observed their neighbors, seeking to push the potentially fatal stigma of witchcraft off themselves and onto others. Confessions of foul deeds, paradoxically, could save someone from the gallows and were “reassuring” to the inquisitors, allowing them to believe that the trials were indeed justified: God’s will was working, and Satan was being defeated.

"Schiff has brought these bizarre and distressing occurrences back into focus in a lengthy, well-researched work.... Executions are conjured up by Schiff in cinematic detail."

Schiff has brought these bizarre and distressing occurrences back into focus in a lengthy, well-researched work. She details the somber fate of those unable to defend themselves in the courtroom, where the “senseless screaming and stamping” of the teenagers were given more credence than the protestations of the accused. A homeless beggar incriminated herself by remaining “dry-eyed” while “many in the room wept with fear.” Executions are conjured up by Schiff in cinematic detail. Crowds gathered and ministers had a field day showing off their oratory at the gallows; sometimes the alleged sinners made much of confessing at the last minute. The death throes of the hanged could take an hour or more, sometimes ending with bludgeoning with an axe if the rope didn’t do its job.

Schiff paints an atmospheric picture of life for Puritan youngsters (one of the accused was only five years old): a ceaseless round of chores, grim predictions, rigid religiosity and strict punishments that could well have engendered psychosomatic pains, psychic terrors and adolescent hysteria. At times, wise old men were forced to ask the opinion of this adolescent chorus as to the precise movements and intentions of Satan, doubtless providing intoxicating attention for the otherwise powerless youngsters.

In this collective portrait, Schiff reminds us of the Puritan belief that God was watching His people at all times, in a literal way that provoked pride that the Almighty expected them to do great things, as well as a potent, physical sense of demons lurking all around, tempting them in the other direction. Though Schiff does not advance a theory as to what caused the original plague of wild tales and hate-filled accusations in Salem, she observes that “Whether hallucinating or confabulating, the afflicted offered up what they absorbed of the adult world, in warnings of invasion, in historical prophecies, in biblical imagery, in local gossip.”