Review by Frank Plowright
The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 and 1693 remain a stain on early US history, yet exploited for tourist purposes. Nineteen people were hung for witchcraft, including men, and many more were put in fear of their lives via trials based on the accusations of teenage girls in largely Puritan communities.
Ben Wickey’s dramatisation, however, delves far deeper than the common knowledge to produce a story rife with the social feuds, religious constrictions and the era’s political tightropes. He starts with the household of Reverend Puttnam where the entire family is under pressure felt by the two young teenage daughters who name their indentured native servant as involved in witchcraft, and so it begins…
As much as the in-depth research, what makes More Weight stand out among innumerable other books on events in Salem is Wickey’s art. His cast drip personality, haggard people bearing the weight of their deprived circumstances in Salem as witchcraft is presumed to lurk in every dark corner. Much is seen through the eyes of a farmer Giles Corey, already a man in his eighties, who under Wickey’s interpretation had disagreements with practically everyone else in the community. His past is thoroughly explored, almost presented as horror in showing what the respected gentry could get away with while maintaining piety. Corey’s appalling in many ways, yet not without some honour and equally a victim. His wife Martha, however, is a pillar of good sense as all devolves around her.
Considerable space is devoted to illustrated transcriptions of the actual trials, verdicts and consequences. Even allowing for the superstitions and beliefs of the time, Wickey brings out how there’s a wilful blindness rejecting the obvious conclusion of young girls fabricating nonsense. However, attempting to be as accurate as possible means introducing too many characters, making an already exhaustive cast difficult to follow.
Wickey further incorporates those who later wrote about Salem, also seen bearing the cloak of guilt as Nathaniel Hawthorne is descended from a judge who presided over the witch trials. He’s gloomily accompanied by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow touring Salem and discussing events over a century later. Wickey quotes their works and uses them in what’s an extended postscript in all but placing, discussing faith and fate before a fanciful nightmare.
Alan Moore’s cover enthusiasm is only natural, as Moore provides Wickey’s lead with his and Eddie Campbell’s From Hell, a similarly dense and exhaustive work filling historical fact with informed speculative detail. Wickey’s page by page annotations are equally full. He doesn’t take the easy path of damning the persecutors outright, but presents them as tortured men led by fractured beliefs as to good and evil justifying terrible deeds. Meanwhile entirely innocent people implicate others to save themselves. It’s a terrifying descent into every ridiculous accusation being treated as fact, with even dreams signifying guilt as scores are settled.
At times Wickey lets his cast ramble, and desire for comprehensive presentation means considerable repetition rather than a handful of examples serving to illustrate the remainder. There’s also the messy rush of a final section travelling from the 19th century to the present day exhaustively covering all things Salem. How relevant is More Weight to 2025? The parallels are seen, and hinted at further by Wickey’s juxtaposition of monochrome past and colour present even before he draws attention to today’s scapegoating. Diligent, dense and fascinating, More Weight lives up to its title in a thorough recounting of bleak history.
