The gnarled, emaciated fingers that end in sharp, cracked yellow nails. Skin the color and texture of lichen. The crooked nose and outstretched chin, covered with bursting warts. The shriveled lips and pointed teeth. The broomstick and wand stick. The cauldron and the cackle.
It’s the image the mind commonly conjures up at the mere mention of the word “witch”. A well-worn, well-trodden trope — it’s a concept and a character that has been around essentially as long as humans have been sharing tales around the fire.
The figure makes no proper appearance in Cackle by Rachel Harrison, other than as a shadow and metaphor. Instead of the classical crone, we get Sophie — ethereal, entrancing, effortlessly charming.
And we get our protagonist, Annie (lonely, listless, lugubrious), who appropriately starts the story by moving to a new town after having been unceremoniously dumped by her longtime boyfriend. She finds her new home charming and quaint, and the people equally so, but she has trouble making friends. That is until she meets Sophie, who immediately takes Annie under her majestic wing.
With Sophie’s encouragement and guidance, Annie begins to crawl out of the draining, messy slump that comes after the end of a long relationship. She finds some semblance of happiness and independence. She starts to come into her own. She begins to thrive. Which makes Annie feel only love and gratitude towards her new friend. And which makes it all the more perplexing that the other residents of the small, picturesque town seem to fear and resent the seductive Sophie. As Annie’s doubts grow, so do her insecurities return, threatening to not only undo all her progress, but her friendship with the enigmatic woman from the woods as well.
I adored this book. I found it charming and creepy and cozy in all the right ways. Mostly, though, I loved it for its characters. Sophie’s self-assuredness is nothing short of aspirational and Annie’s journey to amour propre is remarkably relatable and encouraging.
I also found it highly amusing how much of this witchy book read like a self-care primer — right down to the way it portrays how its language and practices can be so easily co-opted by the egoists of the world as just another way to excuse their selfish, toxic behavior. Harrison is certainly not the first writer to use the witch as a metaphor for personal autonomy, but her take feels distinctly modern. Cackle may explore a centuries-old archetype, but it is very much a millennial fairy tale.
But in the end, no matter what the witch looks like (crone, maiden, mother), or the time period she inhabits, the message of her story has remained largely the same: be true to yourself and take no shit. Cackle concurs, and it makes for a delightful, delicious read.
ricardo reading 