The Daylight Gate by Jeanette Winterson: The Novel Cure for being left cold by Halloween

Ailment: Left cold by Halloween

Cure: The Daylight Gate by Jeanette Winterson

Halloween should be a time of mists and madness, of unidentified screeches in the night, of visitations from the dead. But all too often it's about plastic pumpkins, glow-in-the-dark socks, and trick-or-treaters gorging on chocolate. If you regret the taming of Halloween, we prescribe an adult shiver up the spine in the form of Jeanette Winterson's spooky novel The Daylight Gate.

Based on real events, the tale is set in 1612, when even King James I was curious enough about witchcraft and werewolves to write a book about the supernatural, while pursuing heretics of all kinds. The novel begins with the King's clerk, Thomas Potts, arriving in the Lancashire village of Pendle ready to hunt down the witches rumoured to reside there. Along rides Alice Nutter, a local dame who has made a fortune from magenta dye, and is sufficiently her own woman to attract suspicion. Strangely young-looking for her years, she sits astride her steed rather than side-saddle, and has both male and female lovers.

To make matters worse, her erstwhile lover, Christopher Southworth, a conspirator in the Gunpowder Plot, arrives at her door hoping for a place to hide. This is when things really start to go “witchery popery”, as Potts puts it. Alice tries to help her friend without putting her own neck in the noose – or those of the destitute women who live in a tower on her land. When severed heads start to talk, teeth rain from the sky, and lips painted on the surface of a door grow warm and seek a kiss, we know the dark arts are alive and twitching.

Winterson evokes a time in history replete with paupers and priests, random accusations and terrifying reprisals. It's a world in which the supernatural is a matter of course. Don't be surprised if, by the end, the shadows behind you are transmogrifying into something more tangible.

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