The Witches of Cambridge by Alice Hoffman
Cambridge Common is a wedge of grass with paths cut across it and traffic on three sides. In 1692 a tree stood on it that women were hanged from. In 1950 there is nothing but the paths, and on an October night a group of freshmen is summoned to stand where the tree used to be. The Witches of Cambridge by Alice Hoffman is built on that piece of ground and the two and a half centuries stacked on top of it, and the thread it pulls end to end is the least comforting one available: the machinery that hanged women in Massachusetts was never dismantled. It only changed clothes. The Thread That Runs Through The Witches of Cambridge Two strands, and they are not equal. The modern strand covers four academic years, 1950 to 1954, one per section, following two Radcliffe students from the week they arrive to the morning they graduate. It is third person, roving, generous with everybody’s interior life, the dogs included. The older strand is a sequence of letters written …
