The Witches of Eastwick

Fantastical stories about the supernatural and the paranormal I always find interesting. Perhaps it is the curiosity to see how authors attempt to take a familiar character phenomenon and make it fresh and new. John Updike’s The Witches of Eastwick is a classic example of exactly this: a sweet and delicious reward for curiosity in a clichéd supernatural theme. 

The story follows Alexandra, Jane, and Sukie, three divorced witches who form a coven and live life one affair with a married man after another. But this changes when a rich and charismatic stranger moves to town. Immediately, the girls are entranced by Darryl Van Horne and romantic pursuits begin. But as maleficia and guilt begin to spread throughout the coven, the little town of Eastwick starts to suffer as the internal struggles of these women who can create thunderstorms and fracture domestic peace with their wills start to take shape on the outside. 

I absolutely adored this book! It’s a special kind of writer that can scribble about the textures of nature and mundane goings on and still cause you to avidly devour the pages. Updike writes in a way that is both lengthy and blunt. The balance sits between his long narrator monologues of omniscient description and then his bouts of dialogue. Sentences coming from characters are crisp and quick and are a perfect contrast to these lengthier bits of descriptive narrative. 

This balance and pace created by description and dialogue actually sets the pace for the entire story: entertaining but seemingly non-driving events seem to last an age and hard-hitting bits of excitement are led up and to and happen in an instant. It’s actually hugely effective because when dramatic events do take place, you’re not entirely prepared for them and they do come as a shock. 

That’s another thing I liked about this book; at no point can you foretell where it’s going. There is a lot of mystery that clouds characters and events and, of course, that’s what makes it all the more entertaining. 

The characters are glorious; there is such wonderful contrast between the central trio that you wonder how they came to be such friends. We have Alexandra; nature’s own, mother, and traditionalist, then we have Jane who is sarcastic, jaded, and course, and Sukie the pretty and vivacious young one of the group. At times you really have to wonder how these girls came to be as close as they are, but they are and their wonderful relationship is very interesting to read about, especially as Updike does not shy away from portraying them as wicked witches. 

Perhaps it’s because you’re primed to root for these women and love them, that their conflicting personalities make them endearing, but when you take a step back and look at the context of scenes and what’s happening outside them, these women aren’t exactly Glinda the Good. All three are mothers and yet we hardly see them interact with their children, in truth they neglect them so as to have their self-indulgent trysts with Van Horne. They are mischievous, playing nasty pranks on the wives of their lovers and even exacting malevolent vengeance. 

In a way, this book is a wonderful look at the selfish and indulgent side of humans, just made more eye opening by the fact that these women have powers. The whole witchcraft theme is actually quite normalised throughout the story, making it a great study of human behaviour in both smaller groups and wider communities. 

The Witches of Eastwick is a wonderfully engaging and mischievous book filled with everything from war politics to domestic drama, romance, and comedy. There’s a million ways you can interpret its goings on and I think that’s one of the best things about it. 

Author: John Updike

Published: 1984