Book Review: My Dear Hemlock

My Dear Hemlock by Tilly Dillehay

Canon Press, 2024, 182 pp.

Tilly Dillehay’s My Dear Hemlock is her concept of a female version of C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters. For those who are not familiar with that novel, it is a series of letters from a senior demon named Screwtape to junior demon Wormwood on how to tempt a particular man. What Dillehay has done is pen a series of letters from a senior demon who has taken female form, Madame Hoaxrot, to a junior demon who has also taken female form, Hemlock. Hoaxrot gives her best advice to Hemlock on how to tempt a particular woman.

Objections to the very idea of the book have been juvenile.

·       -  The writing cannot be on a level with C.S. Lewis’. Dillehay does not pretend that it is.

·      -  We don’t need another Screwtape Letters. Dillehay firmly believes there are temptations particular to women.

Having dismissed the objections to the very existence of the book, I have to say that for the most part it didn’t really reach me. I don’t think this is mostly because I am not a woman. Although I like the concept, the insights it gives on how a woman might be tempted did not strike a cord with me that much.

But here is a part where she does sound like C.S. Lewis:

You asked which is better: to encourage your woman to start a fight with the husband about what he did, or to encourage her to ignore what he did and punish him with silence. The answer is—yes. Honestly, it’s little matter to me which she does, as long as her heart is cooled and hardened toward her husband and the Enemy. (p.17)

The concept of demons not caring which opposing choice a human takes, so long as it is wrong, is much like The Screwtape Letters.

Since this is an updated version, we find out the demons like smartphones. “Social media has made it possible for her to do something, to take concrete steps to pursue the fame she desires.” (p. 38) “And her husband’s eyes will never provide the inflation of regard she requires.” (p.39) Serious articles have been written on how too much smartphone use can erode relationships, but this captured it nicely.

The letter I found most interesting was “On Envying the Pastor’s Wife.” A new pastor comes to the woman’s church, and the pastor’s wife is kind, wise, and attractive. She is constantly invited to dinners. The other women of the church are paying attention to the pastor’s wife, not to the woman being tempted. Madame Hoaxrot finds this to be “Pure comedy.” (p. 133) The hope is that this woman will become envious. The ways that envy can become hatred were insightful.

Hoaxrot’s letters seesaw back and forth between the woman falling for a temptation, or completely avoiding it or even repenting. I suspect that despite my tepid reaction to it, many will find it interesting.