Arts
Kate and Medaya are joined by Rivka Galchen whose new novel, Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch, takes place in 17th century Germany during the plague and the Thirty Years War. It fictionalizes the real life story of Katharina Kepler, the mother of astronomer and mathematician Johann Kepler. Katharina, an elderly widow who seems to care most for her cow Chamomile, is accused of being a witch by another woman in the small town of Leonberg. Soon everyone in the town is giving testimony to Katrina’s apparent wickedness. Katrina’s side of the story is told through her neighbor Simon, who acts as her guardian. But as a bookseller later says to Simon “people don’t like an old lady’s story.” The novel is told through both fictional testimonials as well as actual translated historical documents. Also Zakiya Dalila Harris. author of The Other Black Girl, returns to recommend Raven Leilani’s heralded first novel, Luster.