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The Witch Diggers
Christie Fraser went to court Cate Conboy on Xmas Eve 1899. He had only met her once at his cousins sociable. During his visit he learned a lot about Cate, her family, and the inmated of the Poor Farm her father ran. The reader learns what happed to Cate's courtship and what role the "diggers" played.
- GenresFiction
441 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1951
121 people want to read
About the author
Jessamyn West
65 books39 followersMary Jessamyn West was an American Quaker (originally from Indiana) who wrote numerous stories and novels, notably The Friendly Persuasion (1945).
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 10, 2021
The Witch Diggers
by Jessamyn West
My last reads of this author (one of my favorites) were Friendly Persuasion and Except for Me and Thee, very different animals than this read. Picking The Witch Diggers off my TBR list, and reading, I immediately felt the change in mood and atmosphere present. There was crazy here somewhere. Lurking hard.
Even with the dark, low music playing in the atmosphere, her writing compels me to turn pages, word after word, character to character, with just enough vagueness to slow me down. Re-read, re-imagine, make sure I’m catching exactly what she means. The way the text is sectioned, cut into relevant pieces helps me and I thank her silently. Her descriptions are lovely, winding, as if she wrote them while in a twirl so a reader gets a 360 view.
Subjects in this book are deeper, grimier than the other two books I’d read. The main character starts out to be Cate, a girl who is trying to be all she should be, but is painfully aware of how far her real self is from the ideal. Then other characters are added, and a reader begins to see how that self-exam is going on with all, and just to add fuel to the fire, the setting is a county poor house, inhabited by souls who have suffered far and wide on the spectrum of life’s troubles. Cate’s father, Link, is a man who gave up law to serve the public so he could match up to the ideal he’d grown to expect out of himself. By the end of the book, I could make a case for just about 5 or 6 characters to be considered "the main character." There are too many characters to examine here, and that is not the purpose of this review – which is to give you, dear reader, a sense of whether this book is for you. To that I say – so if you’ve read others of Jessamyn West’s books, you may want to give this a try. This is a “think-about” book.
The title comes from inmates of the poor house who are rough in nature, spiritual to an uncomfortable degree (felt like kool-aid drinkers to me). They followed a man who equipped all with digging instruments and would go out and have a revelation, like a water witcher or dowser, that he could restore the faith and hope of all those who joined in. There were potholes all around the poor house property.
At the close of the book one ponders about happiness, the point of the author’s effort at writing this book. Is it earned by our actions? Is it purchased? Perhaps it is a matter of luck, lottery or clever dealing? Are we tricked into it? Do we just call what we got enough? And what of our duty, if any, to account for any lack of happiness we may experience: Is it our fault? Has it been knocked out of us by storms and battles? Is happiness deserved or undeserved? Bestowed by divine others or wrenched away as a consequence of missed steps on the path or wisdom unheeded?
This, for me, will be one of those “sticky” stories that I carry along, which pop up at the oddest, most perfect moments.
by Jessamyn West
My last reads of this author (one of my favorites) were Friendly Persuasion and Except for Me and Thee, very different animals than this read. Picking The Witch Diggers off my TBR list, and reading, I immediately felt the change in mood and atmosphere present. There was crazy here somewhere. Lurking hard.
Even with the dark, low music playing in the atmosphere, her writing compels me to turn pages, word after word, character to character, with just enough vagueness to slow me down. Re-read, re-imagine, make sure I’m catching exactly what she means. The way the text is sectioned, cut into relevant pieces helps me and I thank her silently. Her descriptions are lovely, winding, as if she wrote them while in a twirl so a reader gets a 360 view.
Subjects in this book are deeper, grimier than the other two books I’d read. The main character starts out to be Cate, a girl who is trying to be all she should be, but is painfully aware of how far her real self is from the ideal. Then other characters are added, and a reader begins to see how that self-exam is going on with all, and just to add fuel to the fire, the setting is a county poor house, inhabited by souls who have suffered far and wide on the spectrum of life’s troubles. Cate’s father, Link, is a man who gave up law to serve the public so he could match up to the ideal he’d grown to expect out of himself. By the end of the book, I could make a case for just about 5 or 6 characters to be considered "the main character." There are too many characters to examine here, and that is not the purpose of this review – which is to give you, dear reader, a sense of whether this book is for you. To that I say – so if you’ve read others of Jessamyn West’s books, you may want to give this a try. This is a “think-about” book.
The title comes from inmates of the poor house who are rough in nature, spiritual to an uncomfortable degree (felt like kool-aid drinkers to me). They followed a man who equipped all with digging instruments and would go out and have a revelation, like a water witcher or dowser, that he could restore the faith and hope of all those who joined in. There were potholes all around the poor house property.
At the close of the book one ponders about happiness, the point of the author’s effort at writing this book. Is it earned by our actions? Is it purchased? Perhaps it is a matter of luck, lottery or clever dealing? Are we tricked into it? Do we just call what we got enough? And what of our duty, if any, to account for any lack of happiness we may experience: Is it our fault? Has it been knocked out of us by storms and battles? Is happiness deserved or undeserved? Bestowed by divine others or wrenched away as a consequence of missed steps on the path or wisdom unheeded?
This, for me, will be one of those “sticky” stories that I carry along, which pop up at the oddest, most perfect moments.
June 24, 2019
"The Witch Diggers" feels like a great american novel that was somehow overlooked by whoever makes those lists of the top novels of the last century. Or maybe it just spoke to me in a way that Twain or Faulkner never really did.
Written in 1951, the novel tells the story of Cate Conboy, whose family runs a poor house and Christie Fraser, who falls in love with tomboy Cate after meeting her at a party. We also meet Cate's adolescent sister Em, trying to find her place in the world, and Christie's cousin Sylvy, herself quietly falling in love with Christie.
Despite being at the center of things, the novel is only partially about Christie. It's a bit more the story of the Conboy family, each of whom is trying to find their place in the world. Characters are wonderfully rich, with hints of despair and darkness sprinkled throughout. Events play out as Cate and Christie try to figure their lives out and simple innocence is often interrupted by disturbing real life tragedies.
The power of "The Witch Diggers" is in its mood and its representation of the inner turmoil that these characters struggle with, living at the turn of the century. It's well worth a deeper look and should probably be more widely read than it seems to be.
Written in 1951, the novel tells the story of Cate Conboy, whose family runs a poor house and Christie Fraser, who falls in love with tomboy Cate after meeting her at a party. We also meet Cate's adolescent sister Em, trying to find her place in the world, and Christie's cousin Sylvy, herself quietly falling in love with Christie.
Despite being at the center of things, the novel is only partially about Christie. It's a bit more the story of the Conboy family, each of whom is trying to find their place in the world. Characters are wonderfully rich, with hints of despair and darkness sprinkled throughout. Events play out as Cate and Christie try to figure their lives out and simple innocence is often interrupted by disturbing real life tragedies.
The power of "The Witch Diggers" is in its mood and its representation of the inner turmoil that these characters struggle with, living at the turn of the century. It's well worth a deeper look and should probably be more widely read than it seems to be.
July 3, 2013
I read this book many moons ago, and luckily had almost completely forgotten it. It's unlike any other Jessamyn West story I've read, much darker and more surreal. It's kinda disturbing, lots of 'dark underbelly' stuff about growing up in a repressed household in a repressed society and it takes place in a poor house so there's that. Human capacity for cruelty is on display, the confusion of puberty, the unpredictability of insanity (could go either way, it's not all dreadful), the foibles of pride, jealousy, rage... it's all there.
I love this book, it's rich, it's dark, it's full of interesting, quirky characters and I love how she writes. Not for everyone, can I say it again: it's dark.
I love this book, it's rich, it's dark, it's full of interesting, quirky characters and I love how she writes. Not for everyone, can I say it again: it's dark.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews