The Crying Out: A Novel

The Witherspoon family, descendants of New England Puritans involved in the 17th-century witchcraft trials, have inherited an unspoken secret that binds them to each other and to their ancient hilltop house in Madawaska Valley where the lives of four generations of women named Sibyl have unfolded. The story centers on the youngest Sibyl who, vowing to change her fate, flees to the city. Three years later she is forced to return to look for her missing grandmother.

Alone in her birthplace, history superimposes itself on reality as she is pulled into the darkness of her ancestral past. But with the resilience of her Puritan forefathers, Sibyl confronts her family secrets, emerging with a clarity that culminates in the novel’s startling climax. The Crying Out is a daring first novel that draws the reader into its haunted world through the power of language and imagery. The highly charged, voice-driven narrative weaves back and forth between the 17th and 20th centuries, integrating past and present, love and betrayal, madness and sanity. By exploring the history of one family, Diane Keating speaks to the eternal question of what makes us who we are.