“Witchcraft for Wayward Girls” Confronts Patriarchy Horror With Teenage Witches https://ift.tt/0A3XK1L
In Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, Grady Hendrix uses his signature style of quirky horror to explore themes of women’s bodily autonomy and institutionalized misogyny. Set in 1979s St. Augustine, Florida, during the “Baby Scoop Era,” – a period in U.S. history when thousands of unwed pregnant women were pressured to give up their children for adoption – the novel follows pregnant teenage girls sent to a group home to hide their “shame” from society. While the book is an entertaining tale of witchcraft meets teenage rebellion, Witchcraft for Wayward Girls also tackles heavy historical themes. The story feels highly relevant today as the erosion of women’s rights, silencing of their voices, and even threats of violence over accusations of witchcraft remain pressing issues.
The novel’s horror builds slowly, unfolding from systemic oppression endured by the girls of Wellwood House. Fern, the story’s central character, is abandoned at the facility by her father to complete her pregnancy in secret. Despite the home being run by women, everything about Wellwood House exists to reinforce a society controlled by men. The house, operated by the humorless and cruel Miss Wellwood, is committed to upholding her father’s legacy – a symbol of patriarchal dominance.
“Fern saw one of the… portraits of Dr. Wellwood glowering at them. They had lived in this house bearing his name for months. He had watched them come and go and suffer, and his daughter had given them the name of girls who’d lived in this house before them, and girls had left, and girls had arrived, marching through his home in an endless circle. Trapped here forever.”
Tension builds as the women remain powerless and hidden away in the house as their due dates tick closer. They appear to have no choices. The staff control everything: forbidding the use of their real names, deciding what they eat and drink, dictating how they spend their days, and providing little information regarding their bodies or childbirth. Even what they are allowed to read is carefully monitored.
Yet, as any avid reader might expect, it is a book that eventually cracks open the door to rebellion in this story. When a magic book on spells is smuggled into their hands, it becomes a catalyst for a power shift within the grounds of Wellwood House. In a world where society denies them control, the girls are confronted with the opportunity to create their own power.
While the second half of the book is full of witchy fun, the truly terrifying aspects of the novel are rooted in historical fact. Each girl at the Wellwood House represents a different form of victimization. Some are there because they sought love and were betrayed, hidden away while the young men responsible are supported to pursue their professional goals. Others were victims of coercion or sexual abuse. Hendrix delves into this heavy subject matter with empathy, exploring the traumas of forced adoption and the complexities of reuniting with a birth mother decades later.
At the novel’s end, Fern recalls, “I need you to understand what they did to us when we were girls… girls in trouble; unsocialized girls, fast girls, loose girls, emotionally immature girls, wayward girls. Whatever you wanted to call us, we were children. And we had to make terrible choices.”
Blending detailed historical research and vivid descriptions of 1970s Florida with supernatural flair, Hendrix transforms the horrors of systemic injustice into a darkly fun, empowering tale of rebellion, resistance, and the fight for bodily autonomy.
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