Writing About the Past and Stumbling Upon the Present: Adriana Mather on Reliving History

My ancestors instigated the Salem Witch Trials, lived in Sleepy Hollow, and survived the Titanic. My grandmother used to walk me through her house when I was a child, telling me stories of forbidden love, failed inventions, and overseas adventures. When I read the letters that my relatives wrote hundreds of years ago, I was completely charmed and my imagination went wild. I kept thinking about how I wanted to bring these dark intrigues into a present-day setting. And when I couldn’t get the idea out of my head, I decided to embrace it and write modern mysteries using my family history as clues. The funny thing was, the more research I did for my books, the more I kept stumbling upon evidence that history repeats itself — a phrase I thought was nothing more than an overused cliché. But like any good mystery, I learned that you can’t take anything for granted.

I’ve always been super curious about my ancestor Cotton Mather, who instigated the Salem Witch Trials, and I decided that a historical villain would be a good place to start. And modern-day Salem, Massachusetts, is just too amazing not to set a story in (preferably during autumn). Throw in a handsome ghost and some spiced apple cider and I was typing with reckless abandon. As I wrote How to Hang a Witch, I kept getting this nagging feeling that there was something familiar about the Witch Trials, that I recognized the story, not from history books but from my own life. And then it occurred to me: If you strip away the old-world culture, you’re left with social uncertainty, fear, and dangerous group dynamics. Where once these negative aspects of our society coalesced into the Trials, they now manifest as bullying. The parallel was eerily strong, and I realized that “history repeats itself” isn’t just a cliché but a frightening reality.

Shortly after I finished How to Hang a Witch, I discovered an envelope in my grandmother’s desk, nestled among a stack of old letters and newspapers. It had the word Titanic sprawled across the front. When I first stumbled across it, I thought, “No, not that Titanic. Couldn’t be.” But sure enough, inside was faded stationery with a New York letterhead. The letter recounted how my relatives Myra Haxtun Harper and Henry Sleeper Harper had survived the Titanic along with Hammad Hassab, who was in their employ, and their dog. I knew immediately that I needed to write another mystery and include the letter as a clue.

The more research I did for Haunting the Deep, the more I thought about Myra and Henry’s story and how they narrowly survived. Again I felt that nagging sensation that there was something familiar. As I read countless heartbreaking stories of loss, I realized why — some passengers were given priority in boarding lifeboats, while others were locked behind gates. It’s a social construct that still exists, in which the privileged receive opportunities that the marginalized do not.

There I was, thinking I was writing another autumnal mystery with magic, haunted houses, and lots of hot cocoa, and I learned the same lesson twice. History does repeat itself, and if we don’t pay attention, we will forever be repeating our mistakes. But if we revisit history, question history, and discuss the mechanisms behind it, not only can we learn from it, we can break the cycle.