Kathleen Kaufman’s “The Entirely True Story of the Fantastical Mesmerist Nora Grey” weaves an intricate tapestry that bridges two centuries, two women, and countless moments of profound injustice. This gothic historical novel operates on multiple levels—as a supernatural thriller, a feminist reclamation narrative, and a devastating critique of institutional oppression. What emerges is a work that feels both deeply rooted in historical reality and ethereally transcendent.
The novel follows two interconnected storylines: Nairna Liath, a gifted Scottish tarot reader in 1900 who becomes the celebrated medium Nora Grey, and her grandmother Lottie Liath, trapped in the horrific Argoll Asylum in 1866 Wales after seeking justice for her husband’s mining death. Kaufman masterfully alternates between these narratives, creating a temporal spiral that draws the reader deeper into a world where the past refuses to stay buried and the dead demand justice from the living.
The Architecture of Trauma and Transcendence
The novel’s structure mirrors its thematic preoccupations. Just as Nora’s psychic abilities allow her to transcend the boundaries between worlds, Kaufman’s narrative transcends the boundaries between past and present, reality and supernatural. The alternating chapters create a sense of urgency—we feel Lottie’s desperation bleeding through time to reach her granddaughter, while simultaneously witnessing Nora’s gradual awakening to her true power.
Kaufman’s prose carries the weight of Celtic storytelling tradition, rich with imagery that feels both ancient and immediate. Her descriptions of the Scottish countryside have a windswept quality that mirrors the protagonists’ emotional states, while the asylum sequences possess a claustrophobic intensity that makes the reader’s skin crawl. The author demonstrates particular skill in depicting the séance scenes, which crackle with genuine supernatural tension rather than relying on cheap theatrical effects.
Characters Carved from Stone and Spirit
Nairna/Nora Grey: The Reluctant Oracle
Nairna begins as a half-starved girl following her charlatan father from fair to fair, reading tarot cards for scraps. Kaufman traces her transformation into Nora Grey with remarkable psychological insight. The character’s evolution feels authentic—from a girl who could “pop the joints in my feet and toes” to fake spirit contact, to a woman capable of psychokinetic phenomena that tear rooms apart. This isn’t a simple power fantasy; it’s a meditation on how trauma can unlock hidden capabilities, and how society seeks to exploit those gifts.
Nora’s relationship with her abilities reflects the broader theme of feminine agency. She initially sees her powers as a burden, something that makes her valuable to exploitative men like her father Tavish and the manipulative researchers from the Order of St. Cyprian. Her journey toward self-ownership parallels the broader narrative about women claiming autonomy in a world designed to strip it away.
Lottie Liath: The Unquiet Ancestor
Lottie’s storyline reads like a nightmare rendered in Victorian prose. Her imprisonment in Argoll Asylum after demanding her dead husband’s wages serves as a microcosm of how society punished women who dared to seek justice. The asylum sequences are genuinely disturbing, not because of supernatural horror but because of their historical accuracy. Women were routinely committed for “hysteria,” grief, or simply inconveniencing powerful men.
Kaufman doesn’t shy away from the brutal realities of psychiatric “treatment” in the 1860s. The mesmerism experiments performed on pregnant Lottie by Doctors Soekan and Bothelli are horrifying precisely because they’re presented matter-of-factly, as medical procedures rather than torture. Yet through it all, Lottie maintains her fierce spirit, refusing to break even as her body fails her.
The Peripheral Players: Enablers and Exploiters
The supporting cast functions as a gallery of historical types. Tavish, Nora’s father, embodies the particular tragedy of men who have been broken by poverty but continue to exploit those around them. Dorothy Kellings, the famous American medium, represents both possibility and caution—she’s achieved independence through her abilities but at the cost of becoming emotionally hollow.
The various researchers and spiritualists who circle Nora like vultures are drawn with sharp satirical precision. They speak of scientific advancement while treating human beings like specimens. Their pursuit of “regeneration”—bringing the dead back to life—reveals their fundamental misunderstanding of both death and the living.
Themes That Resonate Across Centuries
Feminine Rage as Transformative Power
The novel’s central premise is that feminine anger, particularly when suppressed and denied, can become literally world-shaking. Both Lottie and Nora possess abilities that manifest most powerfully when they’re pushed beyond endurance. This isn’t a simplistic “anger makes you strong” narrative; instead, Kaufman explores how patriarchal systems create the very forces that can destroy them.
The psychic phenomena in The Entirely True Story of the Fantastical Mesmerist Nora Grey—flying books, shattered windows, spontaneous combustions—read as metaphors for the explosive potential of suppressed feminine voice. When women are silenced long enough, their eventual speaking can reshape reality itself.
The Commodification of Trauma
Throughout the novel, men seek to profit from women’s pain. Tavish sells his daughter’s abilities at country fairs. The Edinburgh Spiritualists use Nora’s genuine gifts to validate their theoretical frameworks. The American psychic researchers want to harness her power for their own advancement. Even Dorothy Kellings, despite being a woman, participates in this commodification.
This theme feels particularly relevant to contemporary discussions about trauma narratives and who profits from telling stories of suffering. The novel suggests that true healing comes not from performing pain for others’ consumption, but from claiming agency over one’s own story.
Institutional Violence and Systemic Oppression
The asylum serves as a symbol for all the ways society silences inconvenient truths. Lottie is imprisoned not because she’s mentally ill, but because she demanded what was rightfully hers. The “medical” experiments performed on her are revealed as sadistic tortures disguised as scientific advancement.
These themes extend beyond the Victorian setting. The novel draws implicit parallels between 19th-century asylum practices and modern institutional failures to protect vulnerable populations.
Where the Magic Intersects with History
Kaufman’s approach to the supernatural elements deserves particular praise. Rather than treating psychic phenomena as fantasy, she presents them as natural extensions of historical reality. The Spiritualism movement of the early 1900s was indeed filled with frauds and genuine believers, theatrical mediums and inexplicable occurrences.
The novel’s magic feels grounded in historical possibility. The séances, the ectoplasm, the manifestations of spirits—all these elements existed in the cultural imagination of the period. By anchoring her supernatural narrative in historical research, Kaufman creates a story that feels both fantastical and plausible.
Literary Craft and Stylistic Achievements
Kaufman’s prose style adapts brilliantly to serve the dual narrative. The Scottish chapters carry the rhythm of Celtic storytelling, with phrases like “shìn” and “leann’an” woven naturally into dialogue. The asylum sequences possess a clinical coldness that mirrors the institutional setting. The Boston spiritualist scenes capture the theatrical grandeur of turn-of-the-century American showmanship.
The pacing builds tension through careful revelation. We understand Lottie’s tragedy gradually, each asylum chapter peeling back another layer of horror. Similarly, Nora’s growing awareness of her true capabilities unfolds organically, allowing readers to experience her journey of self-discovery alongside her.
Critiques: Where the Ambitious Scope Sometimes Wavers
While the novel succeeds magnificently in most areas, its ambitious scope occasionally creates minor structural issues. The frequent perspective shifts, while thematically appropriate, sometimes interrupt narrative momentum. Readers may find themselves wishing for longer sustained sequences with individual characters, particularly in the asylum storyline where the horror builds most effectively.
Some secondary characters, particularly among the male researchers, blend together into a mass of entitled academics. While this may be intentional commentary on how such men are interchangeable in their exploitation, it occasionally makes scenes feel less distinct than they could be.
The novel’s climax, while emotionally satisfying, relies heavily on supernatural resolution. Some readers may prefer more concrete justice for the historical wrongs depicted. However, given the novel’s supernatural framework, this spiritual resolution feels appropriate to the story being told.
The Author’s Voice: Confidence in Complex Material
Kaufman demonstrates remarkable confidence in handling multiple complex elements—historical research, supernatural phenomena, feminist themes, and Celtic folklore—without allowing any single aspect to overwhelm the others. Her previous works, including “The Lairdbalor” and “Hag,” established her as a voice capable of blending horror with social commentary, but this novel represents a significant evolution in her craft.
The author’s background as both an academic and horror writer serves her well here. She approaches the historical material with scholarly rigor while maintaining the narrative drive essential to supernatural fiction. Her understanding of trauma’s psychological impact adds authenticity to both protagonists’ journeys.
Cultural Context and Contemporary Relevance
Set against the backdrop of the Spiritualism movement’s height, the novel illuminates a fascinating period when the boundaries between science and the supernatural were particularly fluid. The late Victorian and Edwardian eras saw tremendous advances in psychology, medicine, and social theory, but also witnessed the systematic oppression of women under the guise of “protecting” them.
The novel’s exploration of how institutions weaponize medicine and science against vulnerable populations resonates powerfully with contemporary concerns about medical autonomy, particularly for women. The asylum’s use of “therapeutic” techniques to break Lottie’s spirit mirrors ongoing struggles around bodily autonomy and institutional power.
Comparison to Similar Works
Readers familiar with Sarah Penner’s “The Amalfi Curse” or Alice Hoffman’s “Practical Magic” will recognize the novel’s DNA, but Kaufman’s work possesses a darker edge that sets it apart. Like Hester Fox’s historical supernatural fiction, this novel treats the past as alive and demanding recognition, but with a more explicitly political agenda.
The book’s dual timeline structure echoes Kate Morton’s approach, but Kaufman’s supernatural elements feel more integral to the story rather than decorative. The novel shares thematic ground with Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s “Mexican Gothic” in its critique of institutional violence against women, though Kaufman’s Scottish/Welsh setting provides a different cultural context for similar themes.
The Power of Place and Folklore
The novel’s settings function as characters in their own right. The Scottish highlands, with their mist-shrouded mysteries, provide the perfect backdrop for Nora’s emerging abilities. Edinburgh’s New Town, with its blend of Enlightenment rationality and occult undercurrents, reflects the period’s intellectual tensions.
Most powerfully, Argoll Asylum emerges as a Gothic nightmare made manifest. Kaufman’s descriptions of the asylum grounds, with their false promise of healing concealing systematic cruelty, create an atmosphere of dread that permeates every scene set there.
Bell Island, the novel’s final setting, offers hope without naivety. It’s presented as a genuine sanctuary, but one that exists outside normal society. This reflects the novel’s understanding that some forms of healing require complete separation from the systems that created the original wounds.
Final Verdict: A Supernatural Masterpiece with Historical Heft
“The Entirely True Story of the Fantastical Mesmerist Nora Grey” succeeds as both entertainment and social commentary. Kaufman has created a novel that honors the complexity of historical trauma while delivering genuine supernatural thrills. The book never exploits its characters’ suffering for cheap emotional manipulation; instead, it grants them agency even in their darkest moments.
This is a novel that trusts its readers’ intelligence while delivering the visceral pleasures of Gothic horror. It demands to be read in dialogue with our contemporary understanding of institutional power, feminine agency, and historical justice. The supernatural elements enhance rather than overshadow the historical themes, creating a reading experience that lingers long after the final page.
Recommended Reading for Fans of Historical Supernatural Fiction
If you enjoyed The Entirely True Story of the Fantastical Mesmerist Nora Grey, consider these similar titles:
“The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo” by Taylor Jenkins Reid – For complex feminine characters claiming their own narratives
“The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue” by V.E. Schwab – For supernatural elements tied to questions of memory and recognition
“The Silent Companions” by Laura Purcell – For Victorian Gothic atmosphere with feminist undertones
“Mexican Gothic” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia – For institutional horror and feminine resistance
“The Death of Jane Lawrence” by Caitlin Starling – For medical horror and supernatural psychology
“The Witch Haven” series by Sasha Peyton Smith – For early 20th-century psychic abilities and female empowerment
This novel stands as a powerful addition to the growing canon of feminist historical supernatural fiction, one that understands the political implications of the supernatural while delivering genuine chills and emotional depth.