Literature Review
Rowan Mayfair, a beautiful woman, a brilliant practitioner of neurosurgery – aware that she has special powers but unaware that she comes from an ancient line of witches – finds the drowned body of a man off the coast of California and brings him to life. He is Michael Curry, who was born in New Orleans and orphaned in childhood by fire on Christmas Eve, who pulled himself up from poverty, and who now, in his brief interval of death, has acquired a sensory power that mystifies and frightens him. As these two, fiercely drawn to each other, fall in love and – in passionate alliance – set out to solve the mystery of her past and his unwelcome gift, an intricate tale of evil unfolds.
Moving through time from today’s New Orleans and San Francisco to long-ago Amsterdam and a château in the Louis XIV’s France, and from the coffee plantations of Port au Prince, where the great Mayfair fortune is made and the legacy of their dark power is almost destroyed, to Civil War New Orleans, The Witching Hour is a luminous, deeply enchanting novel.
The novel spans 3 centuries, making our protagonist, Rowan Mayfair, a 13th generation Witch. Turns out, that’s like, definitely not a good thing to be. Rowan is raised – unaware of the Mayfair family legacy – in San Francisco, after being adopted at birth by a cousin three times removed (a very intricate family tree).
Rowan’s biological mother, 12th generation witch Deidre Mayfair, has been living catatonically in New Orleans, in her beautiful and gothic Mayfair home. She is cared for by her 4 elderly and reputedly bitter aunts, Carlotta (she’s the main hag), Nancy, Millie, and Belle. When Deidre dies, Carlotta begrudgingly makes a call to Rowan (now in her late 20s). By law it’s required Rowan be made aware of the Mayfair legacy, which states that Rowan is next in line to become matriarch of the Mayfair gothic mansion in New Orleans’ Garden District, as well as receive a very large sum of a Mayfair inheritance. The amount of this inheritance I don’t recall as being disclosed in the novel, but it is made to seem like a near infinite amount, and understood as impossible to be spent.
This is the foundation of the plot, but the novel is so intricately woven that Rowan’s story is only one chunk of the action. The novel is split into four parts; the first of which acts as exposition and provides lengthy introductions to the complex, extensive lives of the story’s most important characters. It isn’t until the end of the first part that readers are able to see how each character’s storylines interconnect .
We have the gentlemanly, good-samaritan, Aaron Lightner, a research member of The Talamasca (a secretive group which, simply put, studies, records, and seeks to help those involved with the paranormal). Aaron has devoted a large portion of his life to his assignment studying the Mayfair case. He has slight supernatural powers of his own, which explains his involvement with this classified research group. His powers include telepathy, and he is described as having an uncanny ability to make those around him feel comfortable and willing to confide in him.
We have our male “hero” (Rowan’s love interest), Michael Curry, 48, who grew up around the New Orleans’ Garden District, and remembers from his childhood the Mayfair mansion on First Street; and has always felt drawn to it. Part of Michael’s characterization is his endearing appreciation (near obsession) for architecture and the aesthetic appeal of homes. He recalls one occasion from his boyhood of seeing the “man” (spirit) which has attached itself, generations before, to the Mayfair Witches, and he recalls it as a terrifying moment that always stuck with him but, at least then, was without consequence. In his adulthood, he moved to San Francisco and began a home-renovation business. During a depressive episode in 1985, he falls into a stupor and drowns at Ocean Beach, where he receives a vision—to him, feeling deliberate and important—and, once revived, has supernatural powers (telekinetic abilities to see memories attached to the people and objects he touches). He struggles to understand the exhaustive, all-encompassing feeling that he’s been brought back for some higher purpose, and heavily feels as though it involves the woman who saved him—Rowan, while on her boat.
Our main character is Rowan herself, described as having features of a delicate but androgynous nature. Her characterization emphasizes her considerable intelligence and attractiveness, and she comes off as powerful, reserved, and, in my opinion, somewhat unapproachable, but is generally liked. She is a neurosurgeon—an ardent researcher of life as it is in the brain. After the death of her adoptive parents, she lives alone in their large boathouse on the shore. Her real home, however, is her boat the Sweet Christine, which I believe was gifted to her by her adoptive father, whom she did not have a good relationship with. The Sweet Christine is where she is able to feel her most authentic self. She sleeps with lousy, superficial firemen who adore her in the bottom bunk, unable to form a connection with them. On the Sweet Christine is where she decompresses the odd occurrences from her past which can not be explained by her field of science, such as the few times when people around her have died—almost at her command—and the oddly accurate diagnostic sense, revealing if her patient will live or die, she receives when performing surgery.
Part one of The Witching Hour finishes by bringing these characters together, to a hotel in New Orleans, where Rowan plans to accept her inheritance and Michael plans to follow her, as he is preternaturally convinced she will help him decode the vision he received while drowned and lead him to the overwhelming purpose he is so sure and confident in.
Aaron, who has studied all 13 generations of the Mayfair Witches, presupposes the dangers Rowan and Michael are about to get into, and he allows Michael to read the extensive Mayfair report.
In 1650’s Scotland with Suzanne Mayfair, the first Witch, who calls to Lasher whilst being burned for Witchcraft, and leaves her young daughter Deborah with the newly birthed spirit. Deborah is taken in the care of Talamasca member, Petyr Van Abel, to the Talamasca headquarters. She is the first Witch to be given Lasher’s riches and sexual favors, and she later seduces the innocuous Petyr, who already lusts after her. Together they conceive a child, Charlotte, before Deborah runs off to marry a Comte in France.
Before Deborah is put to death by witchcraft (many years later), Petyr visits her while imprisoned in a dungeon, and witnesses the power given to her through Lasher, as with her burning at the stake comes a storm, causing the death of all involved. Before her death, she warned her daughter, Charlotte (next in line for Lasher’s attachment), to flee to Saint Domingue, where Charlotte marries a wealthy man and runs a plantation. Charlotte, who is characterized as a somewhat more benevolent witch than Deborah, is known for her kindness and healing powers.
Much to our discomfort, Petyr not only fathers Charlotte, but Charlotte’s child as well! He is again seduced by a Mayfair witch (though this time it’s his daughter), and is then murdered by Lasher (despite Charlotte’s request for Lasher’s mercy; this is one of the biggest points of contention in the novel, as we ponder Lasher’s ability for free will, his “naturalness,” and his capacity for “goodness,” as he claims to be in complete servitude to the Mayfair witches, but where is the line?)
There is a long, long history recorded through this Talamasca document, which is being read by Michael as he waits for Rowan to meet him in New Orleans. Each succeeding Witch has her own lore and short history, outlining her relation to Lasher and the Mayfair Legacy. I’ll quickly go down the list: we have Jean-Louise, Angelique, Marie Claudette, Marguerite, Katherine (though her “stronger” brother Julien is the designated Witch of this generation), Mary Beth, Stella (Carlotta’s sister), Antha, Deidre, and Rowan. Of these witches, some are “good,” hoping to reject Lasher (this includes Katherine, Antha, and Deidre), and some are “bad,” hoping to use the complete power Lasher gives them (this includes Mary Beth, Stella, and, most evil is Julien).
When Rowan arrives in New Orleans, Carlotta warns her of Lasher’s power and the Mayfair Legacy, urging her to reject it. Carlotta becomes violent and dies, likely due to Rowan’s supernatural ability. Rowan decides to accept The Mayfair Legacy, overcome by her fantasy of riches in a beautiful mansion with her newly discovered large family and her new lover, Michael. Lasher does visit her – raping her on one occasion and seducing her on many others – but she finds herself torn between fearing him/staying loyal to Michael, and enjoying his company and sexual favors. As her life has been devoted to biology, specifically in understanding lifeforms, she desires to discover what Lasher is.
Rowan’s conversations with Lasher are the second best thing to come from this novel—what interesting questions they posit about life and the spirit realm, specifically in free will and what it is to be “natural” and “good.” Lasher does not know what he is or where he comes from; the best he can say is that he is a non-thing, and has come from nowhere, and his purpose is to be with the Mayfair Witches (please note my short descriptions do not do these conversations justice; Lasher’s responses to Rowan’s questions had me feeling as though I was reading a Bible).
For a while, Rowan and Michael are living in a fantasy. They are happy, they are in love, they are pregnant, they are beginning their lives; however, they both worry their honeymoon phase will not last for long. They have deciphered, through the Talamasca’s long history, that Rowan’s being the 13th Witch makes her the key to something, though they are unsure exactly what. They prepare and plan to deal with it as it comes, though it comes sooner than expected.
Rowan intends to bring Lasher to the physical realm, and then kill him with her supernatural ability to cause death. Of course, this does not go as expected. This is where we begin to feel the full force of our disillusionment, as her plan to “beat him” has been the Witches’ plan all along.
This was the entire scheme—Michael’s life, Michael’s death, Michael’s vision, it was all for this moment. Every single present-day movement this novel has taken has been directed by a devil’s plot of witchcraft to bring Lasher to a corporeal body. During Rowan’s struggle with Lasher, Lasher becomes the baby in Rowan’s womb, and essentially births himself to a full-grown manly form.
Subsequently, Michael drowns in the Mayfair mansion’s pool where he revisits the vision that has started all of this. The Witches he had seen then, whom he was so sure throughout the novel (despite Rowan’s apprehension about it) that were pushing him toward a purpose of good, reappear in his unconsciousness to congratulate him for completing his purpose.
Lasher has now been brought to physical consciousness, he and Rowan disappear, and Michael is left alone in the house (which Rowan has left to him), feeling as if this is not over. He waits for Rowan to return.
Significance of Study
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In The Witching Hour, a doctor wakes in a New York hotel room, troubled by a recurring dream of a decaying New Orleans house and a catatonic patient. His unease intensifies after a conversation at a bar with Englishman Aaron Lightner, who collects ghost accounts for the Talamasca.[2]
The doctor recalls serving in New Orleans as a physician to Deirdre Mayfair, who had remained catatonic for seven years. He had been drawn to the austere beauty of her family’s dilapidated Garden District mansion, yet disturbed by decay and by the conduct of her elderly aunts, Carlotta, Nancy, and Millie. Deirdre, although unresponsive, always wore heirloom jewelry, including an emerald necklace that she never took off.[2]
From medical records, he learned that Deirdre had endured years of psychiatric diagnoses and treatments, including electric shock therapy, after giving birth to a daughter who was surrendered for adoption. He came to distrust the aunts, especially Carlotta, a domineering lawyer, and the sullen Nancy, who disclosed that Deirdre’s daughter, now a medical intern in California, did not know her mother’s identity.[2]
During his visits, the doctor noticed the name Lasher carved into a tree and traced in dust. He glimpsed a well-dressed, brown haired stranger on the porch with Deirdre, then later saw the same man in a dreamlike state, urging him to stop Deirdre’s heavy Thorazine injections. The apparition reappeared several times and vanished at will.[2]
The figure grew more tangible, twice causing him to shatter syringes that were prepared for Deirdre. In a final encounter, the man materialized in Deirdre’s bedroom, and the doctor screamed, prompting his superior to dismiss him immediately. The stranger then seemed to stalk him through New Orleans until, near collapse, he resigned and fled.
Back in the present, burdened by guilt, he confides his story to Lightner. Lightner listens, says that he knows the Mayfairs and the house, and confirms that others have seen the same man. He absolves the doctor, saying that no intervention could have helped Deirdre. Relieved, the doctor gives Lightner the tape of his account and destroys Lightner’s card.[2]
In San Francisco, Michael Curry, a successful forty-eight-year-old contractor, lives as a recluse haunted by a recent drowning. Four months earlier, a wave swept him from the rocks at Ocean Beach, and during a near-death experience, he received a purpose for returning, which he cannot recall. Rescued by a woman on a boat, he revived with psychometry, the ability to see images by touching objects. It’s a power that he regards as meaningless torment, so he wears black leather gloves to block the visions.[2]
Michael’s obsession with the lost purpose and with his new faculty alienates his friends and shutters his business. He spends his days drinking and watching old films, while his Aunt Vivian looks after him. Michael remembers his childhood in the Irish Channel, his love for the Garden District houses, and the frequent sightings of a well-dressed man in the garden of a particular First Street house.[2]
After his firefighter father died, Michael and his mother moved to her native San Francisco, where he flourished and founded a successful restoration company. His life included intense relationships, most notably with Judith, which ended when she aborted their child, a loss that marked him. In despair now, Michael believes that his forgotten purpose is tied to New Orleans and the house on First Street. As he lies drunk, Aaron Lightner arrives at his door.[2]
In New Orleans, Father Mattingly, now elderly, recalls his history with the Mayfairs. As a young priest, he was summoned to the parochial school to handle a six-year-old girl named Deirdre Mayfair, who was accused of stealing flowers that she claimed her invisible friend had brought. Later, Deirdre came to him for confession and revealed that the friend was the being her family called “the man,” or Lasher, whom Aunt Carlotta named as the devil.[2]
Deirdre confessed that she could summon Lasher and that he was a constant, sometimes comforting presence, while her aunts feared him and punished her for the connection. Bound by the seal of confession, the priest did nothing. Over time, Father Mattingly heard parish gossip about the family’s tragedies, encountered the adult Deirdre in a state of catatonia, and eventually told Aaron Lightner the story of the flowers.[2]
In the present, Father Mattingly passes the First Street house, notes that newly broken windows are under repair, and glimpses a man on the porch with Deirdre before turning away.[2]
Dr. Rowan Mayfair, a San Francisco neurosurgeon, proves to be the woman who rescued Michael Curry. She has followed his case in the media and even wrote to him, stating that she, too, was born in New Orleans and adopted at birth. Rowan carries a power, a telekinetic capacity to kill in moments of rage. Whe believes it caused the deaths of a childhood bully, an attempted rapist, and her manipulative adoptive father, Graham Franklin.[2]
She lives with that guilt and channels her focus into life-saving surgery. She once met Aaron Lightner at her adoptive parents’ grave, where he said that he knew her biological family, the Mayfairs, and her mother. This revelation overwhelmed Rowan and sent her fleeing. Now, she receives a call from Michael’s physician and agrees to meet Michael, hoping his psychometry can illuminate the deaths she caused.[2]
In New Orleans, Rita Mae Lonigan, wife of undertaker Jerry Lonigan, remembers her girlhood friendship with Deirdre at St. Rose de Lima’s boarding school. She saw Deirdre meet a lover named Lasher in the convent garden. After Deirdre’s expulsion, Rita tried to help the pregnant Deirdre, whom her aunts were forcing to surrender her baby.[2]
Deirdre threw her a card bearing “Talamasca” and “Aaron Lightner,” begging Rita to call for help, but Aunt Carlotta fought her for the card, partially damaging it. Years later, at Nancy Mayfair’s funeral, Rita met Lightner and, recognizing his name, told him the Mayfairs’ history as she had heard it from her husband and father-in-law, including accounts of murder, incest, and a cursed emerald necklace. Now, hearing that Deirdre is dying, Rita calls the Talamasca in London and leaves a message for Lightner.[2]
Michael and Rowan meet and are drawn to each other. When he touches her hand, he sees her complicity in her adoptive father’s death. She takes him to her boat, the Sweet Christine, where he tries and fails to recover his memory of the drowning. They become lovers, and she confesses her lethal power.[2]
Michael tells her about his visions and his fixation on the house on First Street. He then departs for New Orleans, where Lightner intercepts him. Lightner explains that the house belongs to the Mayfairs (Rowan’s family) and that it will one day be hers.[2]
Lightner provides Michael with an extensive Talamasca file on the Mayfair Witches. It details the family’s history from the seventeenth century, chronicling the bond between a line of female witches and the spirit Lasher, who grants them wealth and power in exchange for a connection to the physical world. The file describes how Talamasca investigators died mysteriously.[2]
While Michael reads, Rowan receives a call from Carlotta Mayfair, who says that her biological mother, Deirdre, has died. Breaking her promise to her adoptive mother, Rowan flies to New Orleans for the funeral and meets her extended family and Aaron Lightner.[2]
Afterward, Carlotta takes Rowan to the First Street house and discloses the family’s secrets, including witchcraft passed through the female line, incestuous breeding intended to strengthen power, and Carlotta’s roles in driving Antha to suicide and orchestrating Deirdre’s institutionalization to break the chain. Enraged, Rowan telekinetically causes a fatal cerebral hemorrhage in Carlotta. She then puts on t
Michael and Rowan begin a passionate relationship and decide to restore the house and live there. Later, Rowan learns that she is pregnant. At a family gathering, they hear a prophecy that, when the thirteenth witch in the Mayfair line appears, a doorway will open for Lasher to become a being of flesh and blood. Rowan is the thirteenth witch.[2]
Michael receives a vision from his guides, Julien and Deborah Mayfair, warning of danger. Lasher torments Michael with apparitions and attempts on his life while seducing Rowan and revealing his plan, which is to take over the body of her fetus at birth and become incarnate.[2]
On Christmas Eve, feeling powerless against Lasher, Rowan sedates Michael and has him removed for his safety. At midnight, Lasher forces a violent, premature birth. He enters the fetal body, which rapidly grows into a man. When Michael wakes and returns, he confronts the embodied Lasher. They fight, and Lasher drowns Michael in the swimming pool.[2]
As he dies, Michael sees the Mayfair ghosts claim that he has fulfilled their plan to bring Lasher into the world. Firefighters, alerted by the house alarm, arrive and resuscitate him.[2]
Michael recovers in the hospital and learns that Rowan has fled to Europe with Lasher. She has left the First Street house and the entire Mayfair fortune to Michael.[2]
Michael realizes that he has lost his psychometric power. He chooses to live in the house, cared for by Aaron and by his Aunt Vivian, and he decides that the final vision was Lasher’s deception. By the end of The Witching Hour, Michael holds to the belief that Rowan, whom he loves, will someday return.[2]