She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and four children. Her book, Seized: Temporal Lobe Epilepsy as a Medical, Historical and Artistic Phenomenon, was published to critical acclaim in 1993. As a journalist, her work has appeared in The Atlantic, New York Times, Ladies’ Home Journal, and The Boston Globe Magazine among others. American Jezebel moves from Hutchinson’s dramatic courtroom battles with the leaders of Massachusetts - who founded Harvard College explicitly to prevent her ideas from spreading - to her banishment to Rhode Island, where she became the only woman ever to found an American colony.Įve LaPlante, a direct descendant of Anne Hutchinson, is a writer and teacher with degrees from Princeton and Harvard. Nathaniel Hawthorne used the controversial Hutchinson as a model for Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter, and Governor John Winthrop called her “American Jezebel.” Nevertheless, the wife and mother of fifteen helped set the stage for our modern concepts of religious freedom, gender equality, and civil rights.Įve LaPlante’s engaging biography captures Hutchinson’s life in all its complexity, presenting a riveting portrait of early America.

In the seventeenth century, a time in American history when a woman could not vote, hold public office, or teach outside the home, Anne Hutchinson possessed remarkable political power.

American jezebel by eve laplante