HEX, by Dutch author Thomas Olde Heuvelt, is a thrilling, supernatural horror story. It is set in a quintessential small American town, which serves as a backdrop to explore the latent evil that dwells within both the individual and the collective – malevolence more abominable than even the most grotesque of supernatural entities.
Black Spring was the arsenic pill they had accidentally discovered under their tongue and had bitten into before they knew it.
Black Spring is cursed with a secret it cannot bury. That secret is Katherine Von Wyler, a seventeenth-century woman who was sentenced to death for witchcraft after it was believed she raised her son from the dead. Katherine haunts the streets and homes of Black Spring, gliding along silently, her eyes and mouth stitched shut with moldering black thread like a possessed rag doll. Also known as the Black Rock Witch, or the more endearing “Gramma,” Katherine often appears unexpectedly in the living rooms and bedrooms of Black Spring residents:
Sure enough, standing in the odd corner between the couch and the fireplace, right next to the stereo—Jocelyn always called it her Limbo because she couldn’t figure out what to do with it—was a small, shrunken woman, skinny as a rail and utterly motionless. She looked like something that didn’t belong in the clear golden light of the afternoon: dark, dirty, nocturnal. Jocelyn had hung an old dishcloth over her head so you couldn’t see her face.
Though she’s a wanderer, Katherine mostly keeps to herself – unless you lend your ear too close to listen to her whisperings: dark, ancient enchantments that cause the listener to die from suicide. Worse things happen if you try to unstitch her eyes.
The people of Black Spring are tethered to Katherine’s curse, a curse created by their Dutch ancestors who settled the town hundreds of years prior. Leaving Black Spring for too long a time has the same effect as the Witch’s whisperings: an overpowering urge to smash your skull against concrete, crash your car, or hang yourself. Most Black Spring residents have chosen to embrace their curse, though Steve Grant’s son Tyler, an ambitious teenager who is sick and tired of all the archaic rules, isn’t one of them. Tyler runs a popular YouTube channel, but for all of his terrifyingly surreal images of the Witch, he can’t share any of them. He can’t even tell his girlfriend, an Outsider (someone who does not live in Black Spring), about the curse. He can’t explain why he can’t leave Black Spring for too long; why he can’t go to college; why he can’t live a normal life.
These strict rules are enforced by the town’s rabid evangelical beliefs, and by a group called Hex, a well-intentioned, Orwellian surveillance group led by Robert Grim. Using massive amounts of surveillance cameras, strict censor rules, and even an alert app, Hex ensures that no one disturbs the Witch or releases knowledge of her existence to an Outsider, something that would put all of them in danger. But when Tyler launches an idealistic movement to change the old ways of Black Spring, he unleashes a new evil that ripples through the town like a plague. His friend Jaydon, part of Tyler’s guerrilla movement, begins to find a sadistic enjoyment in mutilating the Witch. Black Spring quickly begins to unravel, reverting to its seventeenth century ways.
HEX isn’t a perfect story. Violence against women is prevalent, at times even pornographic. During Jaydon’s attacks on Katherine, she is so extremely passive, it is a wonder for all of her supernatural powers that she cannot protect herself. Additionally, it is revealed that Steve Grant prefers/loves his son Tyler more than his son Matt (another theme of the novel – if you could only save one person you loved, who would it be?), the latter son just happens to be gay. Although this theme connects Steve to Katherine, who had to murder her only son to save her only daughter, it would have been refreshing to see his ‘love’ of his sons reversed. As it stands it’s problematic, since Matt is the only visible LGBTQ character in the story, and he’s ultimately abandoned by his dad.
The setting of HEX causes a few issues, too. The “good old American” theme that Heuvelt tries to invoke has the tendency to infect some of his characters for the worse, rendering them caricatures. Perhaps this stems from Heuvelt’s quest to translate his original Dutch novel not only to English, but to change its setting to an American landscape so as to better resonate with readers. I also have to note that sometimes his word choice, such as, “to call Robert Grim progressive was like calling Auschwitz a Boy Scout camp,” or a teenage boy’s use of the word “friggin” instead of just saying “fuck,” distract from HEX‘s prevalence of haunting – and often beautiful – passages. These passages are what give HEX its addictive, heart-wrenching, preternatural thrill, characteristic of any great supernatural horror story.
There are no favorites in HEX; like A Song of Ice and Fire, you shouldn’t get too attached to anyone. Justice for all often results in a tragic bloodbath and a new generation of irrevocable curses.
Images taken from the trailer for the book
