Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

A Novel

By: Rivka Galchen

Narrated by: Natasha Soudek

2021 Time Magazine Best Books of the Year
2021 Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year
2021 Chicago Tribune Best Books of the Year
2021 Washington Post Best Books of the Year
2021 Hudson Booksellers Best of the Year

"It’s both transfixing and destabilizing. It’s the best thing I listened to all winter." (Alexis Gunderson, PASTE Magazine)

The startling, witty, highly anticipated second novel from Rivka Galchen, the critically acclaimed author of Atmospheric Disturbances.

The story begins in 1618, in the German duchy of Württemberg. Plague is spreading. The Thirty Years' War has begun, and fear and suspicion are in the air throughout the Holy Roman Empire. In the small town of Leonberg, Katharina Kepler is accused of being a witch.

Katharina is an illiterate widow, known by her neighbors for her herbal remedies and the success of her children, including her eldest, Johannes, who is the Imperial Mathematician and renowned author of the laws of planetary motion. It's enough to make anyone jealous, and Katharina has done herself no favors by being out and about and in everyone's business.

So when the deranged and insipid Ursula Reinbold (or as Katharina calls her, the Werewolf) accuses Katharina of offering her a bitter, witchy drink that has made her ill, Katharina is in trouble. Her scientist son must turn his attention from the music of the spheres to the job of defending his mother. Facing the threat of financial ruin, torture, and even execution, Katharina tells her side of the story to her friend and next-door neighbor Simon, a reclusive widower imperiled by his own secrets.

Drawing on real historical documents but infused with the intensity of imagination, sly humor, and intellectual fire for which Rivka Galchen is known, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch will both provoke and entertain. The story of how a community becomes implicated in collective aggression and hysterical fear is a tale for our time. Galchen's bold new novel touchingly illuminates a society and a family undone by superstition, the state, and the mortal convulsions of history.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux

©2021 Rivka Galchen (P)2021 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

"It’s both transfixing and destabilizing. It’s the best thing I listened to all winter." (Alexis Gunderson, Paste Magazine)

couldn't finish

The first time I couldn't finish an audio book. The narrator sounded like she was reading to a group of preschoolers.

lies and liars or how to look guilty

this story really matches today's cancel culture combined with how hard it is to determine who is telling the truth this doctor, this citizen, this officer.. I loved the performance although sometimes it was hard to tell who was speaking.

Law and order 1615

Anyone who has had to deal with the legal system should feel a little bit better about how things are now after listening to this book.

I would have preferred multiple narrators to break up the reading. It was sometimes hard to tell that the POV had changed. It dragged on a bit as court cases do, and breaking it up would have helped to liven it up.

Crazy story, as court cases often are.

Difficult to follow in Audible format

The numerous characters’ voices speaking throughout the story was difficult to follow which character it was till about midway through the book. I briefly considered listening a second time, but didn’t find the story riveting enough to do so.

Excellent Concept

I really enjoyed the storytelling style! Mix of interviews and memoir. The time period and stories of daily life are vivid, engaging, and infuriating (in a good way! you just want to reach out and shake some of these characters). I will say, the story started to get a bit repetitive so I skipped a large section in the middle. I picked back up for the final few chapters and don't think I missed anything major. Which is a shame because I really want to recommend this book (as the subject matter is still relevant today re: witch hunts, blaming women, believing women, etc.) but it just got a bit tedious in the middle.

SO BORING

Possibly the most excruciatingly boring story I’ve ever listened to with the exception of perhaps an elderly check-out clerk who rambled on about every item I was purchasing (at least that only lasted a few minutes-this story took hours to tell nothing). Spoiler! She’s not a witch. I never thought she was a witch, but I thought there was a story. Nope. A dreadfully boring story told slowly. That’s it. I’m so done with Audible & their horrible algorithm for predicting what I’ll like.

Damn irritating.

I really tried to get through this, but it just too whiny. I can't take her voice anymore.

Deeply moving. Brilliantly written and narrated

This audiobook is extraordinary and should win all kinds of awards. I was blown away by how the author wove the story from true history, and by the narrator’s presentation of it. I had no idea witchcraft was a thing in Germany like this, and for the first time I felt like I had an insider’s POV of what the details may look like from alllll sides in any and all witchcraft trials. The writer was masterful with the characters, and the narrator equally so. The narrator did an exquisite job catching the personalities and tones of all the different people in this drama, while catching the humor and also connecting us empathetically in an effortless and graceful way. They say great writers transmit an experience rather than talking at us, and this author 100% did that, along with her splendid narrator who was able to artfully weave humor in as well (appreciated because of the subject) where other narrators would have missed it. Thank you. I will be interested to see whether it resonates more among women than men, and wish I could see what age group resonates the most. I don’t think emotionally immature or insensitive people will quite get how brilliant this book is, because she writes as to an intelligent, sensitive audience. Can’t wait for more audiobooks from this incredible team!

so boring

This book was so disappointing. A total bore. I had to quit. I usually can plow through any story. This one didn't even make sense.

women have always been 'witches'

love the story, the narrator and the pace of the telling. amazing sense of how it might have been.