Synopsis: A history of mystic resistance and liberation and of five women who transcended the expected to transform America.
For centuries, women who emerge as mystic leaders have played vital roles in American culture. For just as long, they’ve been subjugated and ridiculed. Today, women and others across the nation are once again turning to their mystic powers to #HexThePatriarchy and help fight the forces that seem bent on relegating them to second-class citizenry.
Amid this tumult, Lucile Scott looks to the past and the stories of five women over three centuries to form an ancestral spiritual coven: Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans; Cora L. V. Scott, nineteenth-century Spiritualist superstar; Helena Blavatsky, mother of Theosophy; Zsuzsanna Budapest, feminist witch and founder of Dianic Wicca; and Marianne Williamson, presidential candidate and preacher of the New Age Gospel of Love. Each, in their own ways, defied masculine preconceptions about power.
A scathing queer feminist history and a personal quest for transcendence, An American COVENant opens our eyes to the paths forged by women who inspired the nation in their own times—and who will no longer be forgotten or silenced in ours.
Full title: An American Covenant: A Story of Women, Mysticism, and the Making of Modern America
Publication day: 6th October 2020
Publisher: Little A
"History may be written by the victors, but legend remains a free-for-all."
In An American COVENant you see that the United States of America was based not only on the belief that it could be a land of freedom, but also that it could be a land where any human could express their beliefs freely, not fearing to speak their minds aloud. But that at the end it was only a new Europe, where people had prejudices and followed the trends, where slaves were still slaves, were women still had no rights and only rich white men could speak their minds aloud.
And what this book tells us is the story of five women who were out of their times, who spoke their minds aloud not caring that they couldn't because the society would crush them down. Even so, they rose above all and got to be heard. Lucile Scott's goal is to recover their stories from the forgotten side of History and bring them back, giving them the credit they deserve. But Scott chooses these five women because she has them as her "mighty spirit companions", as she calls them.
I understand Scott's point, but I don't quite like how she exposes it. The book is a mix between those five women biographies and Lucile Scott's life experiences that brought her where she is now, being able to say that she's found her spirit companions, calling herself a witch and declaring she's a part of a coven. The latter, I practically skipped, because I couldn't find it interesting nor necessary to get to the point. If you read her life parts you'd feel like you're reading a blog post, which, honestly, this book could have been, not needing to be an actual book. But if you skip them then you'll find a gathering of biographies about five women that what they have in common is a sensitive way to understand this world –and even the other side if you believe in it–, also that they all contributed in giving the feminist movement a new approach, making it evolve and go further, and that, in spite of their stories and achievements, they were erased from History –making necessary a Herstory, giving the deserved importance to women.
What I disliked the most was the fact that it doesn't have any footnotes. I think that an essay, as what this book tries to be –though I'm not sure it is–, should be supported by lots of footnotes, not only a "Notes on sources" section at the end of the book, because in my case, yes, I saw there was that section before reading the e-book, but because it was an e-book I didn't consult it at all, because it's not handy going back and forth whenever you want to make sure that any fact comes from a reliable source. So I missed those footnotes with information.
"There's more than one way to burn a witch."
In conclusion, we should take Lucile Scott's work as a subjective essay about women, feminism and mystics in the USA, how they contributed to the evolution of their country at different times but in the same way, and also how we, as women, are united in the same fight against the patriarchy. But always remember that, even if this book doesn't explicitly talk about it, not all women and not only women bleed. We are all witches in the same coven, little by little smashing the patriarchy.
Thanks NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Genre: non-fiction, biographies, history.
About the author: Lucile Scott is a Brooklyn-based writer and editor. She has reported on national and international health and human rights issues for over a decade. Most recently, she has worked at the United Nations and amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, and has contributed to such publications as VICE and POZ magazines. In addition, she has written and/or directed plays that have been featured at numerous New York City venues, as well as in Edinburgh and Los Angeles. In 2016 she hit the rails as part of Amtrak’s writer’s residency program. An American COVENant is her first book. She hails from Kentucky and moved to New York after graduating from Northwestern University.
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