Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch

The plague is spreading. The Thirty Years’ War is beginning. Katharina Kepler is believed to be a witch.

The startling, witty, highly anticipated second novel from the critically acclaimed author of Atmospheric Disturbances. ‘Riveting’ Margaret Atwood An illiterate widow, Katherina Kepler is known by her neighbours 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 favours by being out and about and up 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.

Provocative and entertaining, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch draws on real historical documents to touchingly illuminate a society, and a family, undone by superstition the state, and the mortal convulsions of history. It is a story of our time – of a community implicated in collective aggression and hysterical fear.

A GUARDIAN BEST BOOK OF 2021

‘Darkly funny … Her prose, which recalls Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, is light, pared back and subtly archaic’ Financial Times

‘Superbly voiced … funny’ Telegraph

‘A magical brew of absurdity and brutality‘ Washington Post

‘Galchen expertly weaves together a story told from multiple perspectives, showing how easy it is for a mob mentality to take hold in a climate of fear and ignorance when a woman simply exists outside of the norm‘ New York Times

‘Riveting’ Margaret Atwood

‘I loved this book intensely‘ Lauren Groff