Hex – A Chilling Horror Novel with a Well-Thought-Out Premise

“Every last grain of idealism would be sacrificed on the altar of safety.”

Dutch novelist Thomas Olde Heuvelt’s Hex was written and published in the author’s native language in 2013. In 2015, he won the Hugo Award for his novelette ‘The Day the World Turned Upside Down’. Subsequently, the English translation of Hex was taken over by Nancy Forest-Flier and got published in 2016 through Tor Books. Nevertheless, it wasn't a mere translation. Thomas Ode Heuvelt used the opportunity to rewrite some of the portions, and most importantly he changed the Dutch setting and transplanted it to a village in New York State. Although (those who read both versions say) there’s not much difference in terms of premise, Thomas was said to have subtly enhanced his themes in the English version (especially with the ‘revised ending’).

The chief absorbing factor of Hex is its strange setting and how the author slyly amalgamates super-natural goings with the quotidian small-town life (a lot of parallels could be drawn with the eerie premises often cooked up by Stephen King). Hex is set in the remote town of Black Spring, which once bore the name of ‘New Beeck’, back when it was occupied by puritanical Dutch trappers in the 17th century. With a population of roughly 3,000, the 21^st century Black Spring is like any small-town community that's occupied by people of different ethnicity, religion, temperament, etc.  But in one distinct way, Black Spring is not like any other small-town community: the specter of a 17^th century witch haunts the residents. Arms shackled by chains, eyes and mouth sewn shut, the emaciated Black Rock Witch aka Katherine Van Wyler randomly materializes around the town. Katherine -- mother of two children -- tried, tortured and executed for dabbling with witchcraft by the 17^th century settler colony members has kept the denizens under her spell for centuries.

Although the power of Katherine’s doom-invoking spells are curbed by her sewn eyes and mouth, Black Spring people can’t spend more than a week outside the town without experiencing intense suicidal thoughts. Over the decades, attempts to study her have only led to unnecessary loss of lives. Hence, generations of Black Spring residents has preserved the secret about the witch’s existence through a meticulously organized security apparatus, known as HEX. Run by few selected council members, HEX’s duty is to monitor Katherine’s movements 24*7. Since the witch can materialize at any place within the town, the control center also takes pains to avoid the ‘outsiders’ encountering the ghastly specter. And the people of Black Spring has quite used to the witch’s presence despite her frightful appearance (she enters houses at will and sticks around as families eat and sleep). However, Katherine is pretty much like a dormant volcano or a dangerous primitive evil who may breach this sophisticated, high-tech set-up and bring hell upon the small-town. Moreover, few angst-ridden adolescents, in an effort to change the status quo, disregard the respectful distance they must keep from the witch.

Hex heavily draws upon familiar yet potent elements of small-town horror: the atmosphere of conformity, rebellious teenagers, mass hysteria, sinister secrets, etc. The novel largely unfolds from the perspective of Grant family (reader’s entry point into the ‘bewitched’ town). The rapport shared between elder Grants – father Steve, mother Jocelyn—and younger Grants –Tyler and Matt – gradually bestows upon us the details of everyday life in a town subjected to the looming presence of a supernatural phenomenon. The early dinner-table argument between Steve and Tyler, a teenager intolerant of the quarantine imposed by HEX, deftly sets up the novel's themes of parenting, survival, guilt, generational tension, etc. What I particularly liked about Hex is the exciting world-building: from divulging the pragmatic, spontaneous methods of the town’s control center in ‘normalizing’ the witch situation to detailing the dark origin tale of Katherine van Wyler. Thomas has also done well in not turning the witch into a typical phantasmal antagonist. Katherine’s villainy is mostly ambiguous as the flawed populace’s fear and paranoia (that is to say the very human nature) itself activates a set of chaotic events.

I was a bit disappointed with the middle part of the novel. After careful characterization and frightening developments, these portions seemed to ramble. Nevertheless, from the ‘flogging’ scenario, the story flow once again turns genuinely eerie. The bleak climactic events are very well conjured, reinforcing the author’s idea of how sometimes the human nature is as just much threatening and virulent as the malevolent super-natural phenomenon. Overall, Hex is one of the utterly captivating horror novels I have read in recent times (Warner Bros. has purchased the rights for the novel and are apparently in the process of creating a TV series.)