I liked Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain so much when it came out in 1997, I promised myself I’d read everything he ever wrote.  That hasn’t proved burdensome, as this is only his second novel since then.  I’m just glad I didn’t fall in love with Joyce Carol Oates.

It’s a pretty basic story.  Charismatic nihilist Bud got a slick lawyer and beat the rap of killing his wife Lily, after she hid some money he stole.  Lily’s sister Lucy inherits Lily’s two traumatized, pyromaniac children, and, Bud figures, his money as well.  Lucy lives alone in a huge abandoned lodge in rural North Carolina, and Bud shows up to look for his money, concerned that the children, mute since they witnessed the murder, are beginning to speak.

Frazier’s a natural born storyteller.  His insights into his characters, his prose and his nature writing are all pretty special.  I’m glad I made myself that promise.

“I was born twice.  First in a wooden room that jutted out over the black water of the Thames, then again eight years later in the Highway, when the tiger took me in his mouth and everything truly began.”  This gave every indication of being one of those books where a boy with very constricted possibilities in life goes on to live a big life after all.  Wrong.

Jaffy Brown goes to work for Mr Jamrach, who sells exotic animals, and, when an adventurer invites him along to hunt for a dragon, goes to sea.  The dragon turns out to be of the Komodo variety, and things go very badly indeed, about as badly as they possibly could.

The brutal nature of Jaffy’s trials makes this a hard book to recommend, but Carol Birch’s sprightly prose sweeps one along, and the characters’ essential goodness makes their situation heartbreaking.  How does one live after doing inhuman things?

When a child is brutally murdered in 17th Century Germany, the town elders agree.  Gotta be a witch, right?  They suspect the local midwife, who’s a skilled herbalist.  The sooner they get her burned the better.  Many  years before, when the regional authorities got involved, they located and burned sixty witches.  No one wants to go through that again.  Another child is murdered while she is locked up, but that doesn’t prove her innocence–she’s a witch.

The village elders do need a confession.  Extracting one is the job of the local hangman, Jakob Kuisl, whose own children were delivered by the midwife, and who is a bit of an herbalist himself.  Jakob stalls, trying to solve the murder (and its sequels) with the help of local physician Simon, who has an eye for the hangman’s daughter, unsuitable tho she may be as a match.

Oliver Potzsch researched his novel very well.  The psychology and sociology of the witch hunt ring true.  Jakok Kuisl was a historic character, an ancestor of the author.  That said, the writing (or maybe the translation) seems clumsy and repetitive.  Reviews have mostly been good tho.